


Anomaly

by Artemis_the_Gentle



Series: Lena Adams series [1]
Category: Grant County Series - Karin Slaughter
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:54:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 70,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23752678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis_the_Gentle/pseuds/Artemis_the_Gentle
Summary: Lena Adams is on maternity leave, and she's not loving it. So when a girl is found on the banks of Lake Grant, close to death with no identification, she relishes the chance to focus on something else - at least, until a backpack shows up with only Lena's name inscribed on it. It is the first and only lead and Lena soon finds herself under scrutiny from an FBI agent, as she tries to identify the girl to prove her own innocence.
Series: Lena Adams series [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711045
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	1. Prologue

Prologue

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. She remembered the line from English class, ages ago. An image popped into her head; a classroom, sunlight pouring in through the windows, heavy on her skin. It had been hot and stuffy, a last lesson before the start of the summer holidays, teachers doing their best to keep them occupied. Some had given in, and they’d watched a lot of semi-educational videos that day. But not Mrs Fischer. She’d pulled out all the stops and made them read poetry. The class had protested, but she didn’t think any of them had actually minded.   
She remembered other things, too. The surface of the desk in front of her, already mottled with bored graffiti and smeared with ink stains either accidental or deliberate. The school had finally replaced the furniture at the start of the year. The old desks had been full of dents and holes, making it impossible to write on single sheets of paper, and more than once her clothes had snagged on rents and gaps in the seats of the uncomfortable chairs. The new furniture had come in batches and it had looked good on the pictures they’d taken for the school website, but up close, their downfall had already begun.   
She remembered the way the classroom smelled of sweat badly masked by cheap, sweet deodorant. The rustle of the hair of the girl in front of her, straightened within an inch of its life and dry as straw, ready to ignite in the sweltering heat. The musk of chalk which seemed to linger, even though all the blackboards - which had been green, really, not black - had been banished from the school along with the antique furniture. She’d felt unsettled, the way you did when you got home and a piece of furniture had been replaced or moved.   
It seemed so silly now, so trivial. So fucking pointless, she thought, and for a fleeting moment the voice of Mrs Fischer popped into her head, admonishing her both for swearing and for being so uncreative with it. Plonker. Wally. Numskull. That’s how Mrs Fischer swore at them. It had always seemed contrived to her. Surely, this was not how the language was actually spoken. Or perhaps she’d just felt left out; Mrs Fischer had never called her a wally. She’d reserved that for the students she liked.   
The truck drove through a pothole and briefly, she hovered in the air. She had no choice in the matter, but she’d learned to roll with the punches, go with the flow. Blessed are the meek. Another quote, though she wasn’t sure where it had come from. Her parents would have had a heart attack if they’d known what it would take for her to become the placid, obedient girl they’d wanted her to be. The thought almost made her laugh, but then the truck jostled again and threw her against the mount next to her. She wasn’t sure what it was.   
Who it was. Her mind refused to go there.   
She couldn’t really see much from where she was, but she noticed that the light began to change. The trees, flying by overhead, seemed to be closing in and the road grew ever more uneven. She wondered, with a bored sense of detachment, where they were going. What the end station would be. Their resting place. Rest stop. She almost laughed again, but nothing was really funny anymore.   
The truck was old, and she could almost smell the rust, the metallic tang, the fried grease that kept the engine running, the exhaust fumes that would surely kill the trees they were passing. It clanged loudly as they went over another pothole, or rock, a tree root - who knew - and once again she was thrown against the masses lying next to her. It felt like running up against a sandbag; unexpectedly solid and cold. For a fleeting second, life returned to her, and she wanted to kick and scream and rail against the people driving the truck, like she hadn’t done for far too long. But then the truck began to skid and it slid against a tree, nicking it just slightly. The tailgate popped open. She saw it from the corner of her eye and she waited for the truck to stop, for the people to get out and close it, but nothing happened except that the truck picked up its pace and kept speeding along the forest road.   
Another hole in the ground - a big one, this time, and she was thrown up once again. When she landed, the truck braked briefly, then went ahead full throttle, and the acceleration forced her back, onto the tailgate. She felt her feet slip over the edge, then the rest of her legs, and just as her buttocks landed onto the edge, the truck skidded again, and that was it, she lost her balance, clumsily tumbling out. But instead of the dirt road that they’d been driving on, she went straight over the edge of the road, down a slope, and she felt herself tumble downwards with such speed and violence that she knew that this was how she was going to die. She felt a sharp crunch in her leg, then her arm, and a brief, animalistic groan escaped from her lips. Branches snatched on the ropes that had her wrapped up; the plastic tore and she tumbled out, unable to stop herself. Panicking, she tried to grasp at branches, rocks, anything, but she was weak and even the surge of adrenaline couldn’t force the strength back into her body as she plunged helplessly downward.   
Then her head slammed into a large boulder. The world went black and her body slackened as it thudded lifelessly into the mud of the banks of Lake Grant.


	2. Chapter 2

What did other people hate, Lena Adams wondered, and did they hate it with as much vigour as she hated things? It had always seemed to her that she’d been abnormal in this regard. Other people hated airplane food or going to the dentist. Lena had never flown, and her teeth were fine and warranted little more than an annual look-see that they sought fit to bill her fifty bucks for. She didn’t mind waiting in line, though she was hardly above waving her badge to get ahead. She didn’t hate bumper stickers that said I BRAKE FOR JESUS, or disinterested cashiers chewing gum. At least they left her alone. What she did hate was plentiful, though; people staring at her hands, for one, though these days they mostly stared at something else . She hated being patronised, especially by people she knew. She hated strangers trying to strike up a conversation when all she wanted was to be left alone. She hated getting shots.  
Unfortunately, all of this had happened to her that very morning.  
She couldn’t even muster outrage or anger these days. Perhaps she was mellowing out with age; more pilot light than firecracker, finally. Perhaps hormones were preparing her for her new life, dulling the edges so she wouldn’t explode in fits of rage at the sight of a dropped sippy cup. Perhaps it was just good, old-fashioned depression, not new to her, though the hormones of pregnancy certainly turned it into a whole new beast. The flaring temper when things didn’t go the way she wanted them to, the uncontrollable urge to pick fights that she’d once had: all gone. Instead, she mostly felt a wry sort of vindication - see, I told you it was bad - mixed in with a dash of helplessness here and a pinch of dread there, all swirling together into a vortex, trapping her in the middle. She was still waiting to get to the bottom.  
Exercise hadn’t exactly been a magic fix-all but she’d learned to take the time to go for a run, wear out her body so that it would force her mind to switch off as well, but even that was off the books these days. All she could muster was a gentle walk - more of a waddle, now - and so, though her doctor had told her not to, she kept pushing herself to walk further and further, hoping to exhaust herself. In reality, all she did was make her joints ache, and during her walks she had more time to think than she liked.  
She stood at the water’s edge, staring out over the lake, staring anywhere but down, really, at the bulge covering her once flat abdomen, or at her feet, which she couldn’t see anyway, swollen in muddy sneakers with the laces undone, and she thought about what she hated in life, and how much she hated it. It was a long list with plenty of room for more. The baby kicked, and she felt her belly shift.  
“Stop it”, she said irritably, harsher than she’d intended, nevertheless adding: “leave me alone.”  
“S-sorry”, a voice stuttered behind her, and her heart nearly leaped into her throat.  
“Jesus”, she swore, tripping over her own feet. A woman stood behind her, bundled up into a coat despite the unseasonably warm weather, clutching it to her throat with an anxious look on her face. In her other hand, she was holding a leash with an tetchy dachshund on the other end. “I didn’t want to bother you, only…”  
“It’s alright”, Lena said, trying not to sound too annoyed. She came here to be alone, not to be jumped by strangers. She didn’t like having to share the lake.  
“Sorry I scared you”, the woman said, nervously fidgeting. “I just… Do you have your phone with you?”  
“Uh”, Lena said, intelligently. Her heart was still pounding and her belly had gone rock hard.  
“It’s just…”, the woman began again, but then the dachshund suddenly darted off in the direction of the trees, frantically barking. Lena followed its line of vision with her eyes, but she couldn’t see anything.  
“Scooter! Stop it!” The woman yanked the leash a few times, to no avail as Scooter snarled excitedly at what had to be a particularly devil-may-care rabbit.  
“It’s just…”, the woman began again, her frail voice straining to get over the sound of Scooter’s yapping, “There’s someone, and I think we… Well... “  
“What do you mean, there’s someone?”, Lena asked, and her hand automatically went up to her hip, to where her gun was supposed to be, though there was nothing there. She was off-duty, had been for weeks, and anyway - they didn’t make maternity holsters. She’d checked.  
“Well, you see…”, the woman said again, then turned to the dog once again. “Scooter! Cut it out!”  
“I’m a cop”, Lena told the woman. “I don’t have my ID with me but I’m a cop.” The woman stared at her belly for a second, and Lena felt the urge to throttle her rise until the woman continued: “It’s just… There’s a woman… Or at least, someone… I didn’t check if…”  
Lena felt her heart flutter again, this time with something dangerously close to glee. This was familiar territory. She could handle this.  
“Show me”, she told the woman.  
“Okay”, the woman said meekly, then spent a minute chasing Scooter so she could carry him. Lena would’ve shot the dog if she’s been armed; as it was, she was forced to wait impatiently until the woman had scooped the ferrety creature into her arms.  
“Sorry”, the woman said. “It’s the breed, they’re a little… excitable.”  
“That’s alright”, Lena said, only partially managing to keep the irritation out of her voice. She followed the woman onto a trail that led them back into the forest, then around a corner and onto a makeshift beach at the foot of a steep incline. The woman had to pause once or twice for Lena to catch op, and it pissed her off beyond belief that she was being outpaced by a middle-aged woman carrying a skittish dog named Scooter.  
“Should you be doing this?”, the woman asked. “I mean, in your condition - “  
“I’m fine”, she snapped. The woman gave her another angsty look, then turned and pointed.  
“There”, she said, and Lena looked.  
It was hard to make out, at first; it took her a few seconds before she spotted a shape, partially submerged, at the foot of the incline. From a distance, it barely looked human; covered in mud and leaves and something she suspected might be blood, limbs at odd angles, skin the sour colour of putty. Some people looked like they were sleeping when they were dead, but not this one. This one looked like a discarded clay doll cruelly smashed onto the floor with great force. From a distance, Lena couldn’t even make out whether it was a man or a woman.  
She sat down on a nearby boulder and, with some effort, took off her shoes and socks.  
“What are you doing?”, the woman asked as Lena put them down on a flat piece of rock. Scooter began to snarl again, and Lena said: “They’ll just get stuck in the mud.” Carefully, she stood up - her balance was so off these days that at times, it felt like being drunk, though without the blissful numbness - to make her way across the muddy bank and into the shallow water where the body lay.  
“Shouldn’t we just call 911?”, the woman began. “Let the cops - “  
“I am the cops”, Lena said irritably. “I’m just going to take a quick look so I’ll know what to tell my boss.”  
Who was surely going to kill her when he found her here.  
The water was freezing, sending painful cramps and spasms coursing through her feet, and she suppressed a hearty curse. Still, she waded over to the body, her toes sinking into the mud, water seeping into her tights. As she inched closer, waving her arms like a drunken ballerina to keep her balance, she saw that the body was that of a woman, though she could have been anywhere between fifteen and forty. Her skin had the sallow pallor of the dead, beige interspersed with swatches of dark grey, dull blue, pale red. At least one arm and leg had been badly broken; Lena could see fragments of bone sticking out through the skin. She’d obviously been ill before she’d died; her ribs were visible underneath the skin and her skin seemed to sag, as if she’d lost a lot of weight over a very short period of time. She wasn’t wearing any clothes, and Lena swallowed hard at the thought of what that meant. Another one. She suppressed the urge to bolt.  
Still, she tried to get closer, though the mud was tightening its grip on her feet. The woman had dark hair that clung to her face, obscuring her facial features. There was a gash on her arm and something that looked like a bite mark over her breast, and Lena instantly regretted going out into the water. Why hadn’t she just called in backup?  
Because they would’ve thanked her and sent her on her way.  
“Scooter! Get back here!”, the woman shouted, and suddenly, Scooter shot past her, straight at the body. Lena, startled, tumbled backwards, slipped, and landed inelegantly on her ass in the muddy water. She had the presence of mind to grab the dog’s leash before it began to hump the corpse, or whatever it was planning to do. Scooter, unable to get to the body, began to bark at it, and Lena shouted: “get that damn dog out of here!”  
Suddenly, the body opened her eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

“I swear I was just going out for a walk”, was the first thing she said when she saw Jeffrey’s face. He pulled up a sceptical eyebrow and said nothing, but she could tell he was angry. She resisted the temptation to begin blathering out apologies. 

“It’s true, though”, the woman - whom she now knew to be Marianna Phelps, aged fifty-two, resident of Avondale - told Jeffrey. She’d stuck around even though they’d all told her thanks, we’ll be in touch, go home. Marianna Phelps was a single woman who worked as a bank teller. She’d told Lena, in a conspiratorial whisper, that this was as much excitement as she’d had all year. 

“Well, it’s only January, give it time”, Lena had replied, which had been satisfying, unprofessional, and had gone over Marianna’s head entirely. 

But Marianna had found a new victim in Brad, who was listening to her warbling as if he’d never heard anything more interesting, and Lena was grateful for that right up to the point where Jeffrey had showed up. 

She had been sitting on a rock, covered in mud, wrapped in silver foil that the EMTs had given her, her feet bare because she was bleeding from her right foot and Scooter had run off with the shoe for her left. 

“I told her not to go out into the water”, Marianna Phelps called over. Jeffrey ignored her and told Lena: “You are supposed to be at home.”

“I was. I just went for a walk.”

“What, out here?” He gestured towards the forest, and she shrugged. “I drove. My car’s by the road.”

“Which road?”

She gestured vaguely in the direction of her car and changed the subject. “Did you check missing persons yet?”

He was silent for a few seconds, and she knew he was torn between talking about the case and scolding her some more. The case won out.

“Yeah. No matches, at least not in this state. We’ve sent out a request to Alabama, Florida, Tennessee and the Carolinas but they haven’t gotten back to us yet. I put Frank by the phones.”  
“I should come with you”, she said. “I could check the databases, see if - “

“No”, he cut her off. “You need to be at home. You’re on leave, go watch TV or something.”

“Does it really matter whether I’m sitting at a desk or at the kitchen table?”, she said irritably. He stared at her for a beat, then asked: “Lena, do you have any idea what you look like right now?”

He had a point there. Mud was caked onto her clothes, streaked through her hair; she was shoeless and wrapped in tin foil, sitting on a rock in the middle of nowhere, bleeding and with bare feet. Worse, she had no way to get up from this rock, not without putting her injured foot into the mud again. The EMTs had already left; the woman had been heli’d out, presumably to Atlanta. She wondered if Jeffrey was going to make her ask him to help out. She’d rather sit on the damn rock all night. 

Eventually, though, he reached out his hand and helped her up. He had to stoop as she leaned on him, limping towards his car. 

“Where are your shoes?”, he asked as she sat down in the passenger’s seat. Admirably he did not complain about the mud she was spreading. 

“Scooter took them”, she said.

“Who?”

“That stupid dog.” She struggled to slide into the seat all the way without spreading mud everywhere. “Damn animal probably pissed all over the crime scene.”

“She was in the water. I doubt we’ll find a lot of evidence either way.”

“But you’re still checking it out, right?”

“Of course. The banks and the forest, too. We’ll let you know when we find your shoes.”

That was probably all he’d let her know. She felt antsy, possessive even. She’d been first on the scene; normally, this would have been her case. She said: “I couldn’t make out any identifying marks, but the water or the mud might have been hiding them.”

He went silent again, but eventually he said: “the hospital will let us know, but I think they have other priorities.”

“I really thought she was dead”, Lena said, and for once, he didn’t berate her. 

The woman had opened her eyes, briefly, before slipping into unconsciousness again. Lena had thought, at first, that it was just a muscle spasm - the recently deceased sometimes twitched a little - but after her hands had stopped shaking to much, she’d checked for a pulse and, sure enough, there it was. The girl’s body felt cool to the touch, but not as icy as Lena had expected. She must not have been in the water for very long. The thought that she might have fallen only a tens of yards from where Lena had been walking sent shivers down her spine. 

Jeffrey said: “she wasn’t wearing any clothing.” He stared ahead at the road as he said it, but she knew he was gaging her reaction, and she hated him a little for it. 

“I didn’t see any signs of rape”, she said, matter-of-factly, though she felt her stomach churn at the thought. “I didn’t want to move her.”

“Talk me through it”, Jeffrey ordered, and she dutifully obliged. “I was out for a walk. A woman came up to me and asked me if I had my phone with me. She said she thought she’d found a body. I asked her to take me to it. We walked over to it. I took off my shoes and waded into the water. I saw a person, partially submerged, who appeared to be dead. I saw no immediate threat in the area so I went to check for a pulse. I fell over when the dog broke loose. I told miss Phelps to call 911 when our Jane Doe opened her eyes. I stayed with her until the EMTs arrived.”

“Did she say anything?”

“No, she just passed out again. I don’t think she noticed I was there.”

“That’s probably for the best”, Jeffrey said, and she silently agreed. She asked: “Does it bother you that she hasn’t shown up yet?” Missing white women did not often go unnoticed. 

“A little”, he admitted. “But Frank is checking the national database. She might not be local. We’ll call the feds if we haven’t got a name by tomorrow.” He paused as he took a right turn onto the street where she lived. “How old do you think she is?”

“Hard to tell. Early twenties, maybe?”

“Let’s hope you’re right”, Jeffrey said darkly, and she understood why. The pedophile ring they’d worked on a few years back was still fresh on her mind. She’d seen things she was unlikely to ever forget. Involuntarily, her mind went over to the baby. She wondered how the parents of those children, the ones they’d seen in the ever more professional videos, had felt about them. Was it a matter of negligence, carelessness, or something more insidious? Would she ever be able to protect her child against these unspeakable evils? Surely no parent started out thinking they were going to hurt their child, but Lena had seen evidence to the contrary too many times. Resentment and opportunism rarely went together well, and the baby had not been a welcome guest. She felt betrayed by her own body, as if it and Ethan had gone behind her back to arrange a plot that would leave her bound to him for the rest of her life. 

Lost in thought, she missed that Jeffrey spoke to her. 

“Lena?”

“Yeah, sorry”, she said. “I’m just a little tired.”

“I said I’ll wait. Take a shower, put on some clean clothes.”

It took her a while before she realised what he was talking about. 

“I’m fine”, she said, but he cut her off. “Are you a doctor?”

“No, but - “

“Then shut up.” He got out of the car, went over to her side and reached out his hand, which she ignored as she struggled to get to her feet. He followed her into the house, and she tried not to feel too self-conscious. She was a good tenant, paid her rent on time, kept the place spotless, even now that scrubbing the floors made her back hurt; it was a nice house, and he probably could’ve rented it out for more than he was asking now, which made it all the more awkward as he sat down on the sofa - his sofa, the bulky black leather kind only a single man would pick - and said: “I’ll let the clinic know we’re on our way.” 

She muttered a few listless curses under her breath as she limped away, towards the bathroom, tossing the foil blanket to the side in the hallway. 

One look in the mirror told her why Jeffrey hadn’t carted her off to the hospital straightaway. She looked like she’d been living in the woods for months. There was mud on her face, in her hair, all over her shirt and skirt, and her ass was cold from wearing wet clothes for so long. With a sigh, she leaned on the vanity, staring down at the sink. The baby, suddenly restless now that they were home, squirmed uncomfortably, and a hard lump appeared below the right side of her rib cage. She put her hand over it, briefly, but then she winced, and began to undress resolutely. 

Clothes were a nightmare these days. Once it had become clear to her that maternity wear was no longer avoidable she’d bought a pair of jeans, the ones with the stretchy band on top, but even those felt uncomfortably tight. She’d been wearing leggings, cheap stretch skirts and t-shirt dresses for months now, the kind you’d buy at Walmart for a few bucks and that would lose their shape after wearing them for five minutes. She’d pair them with leggings and jackets and the one pair of sneakers that still fit, which Scooter had now made off with. The only other pair of shoes she had left were a set of black imitation Uggs that Nan Thomas had given her, and the look on her face had been so earnest that Lena still didn’t know whether it had been a serious suggestion or a well-executed prank. Considering the copious amount of glitter glued to the sides of the boots, Lena was inclined to think it was the latter. Lena and glitter did not exist on the same plane. 

Getting anything done these days was a struggle; twenty minutes was the fastest she could manage, though it left her feeling a bit better. She squirmed into a pair of black leggings and a burgundy t-shirt dress with long sleeves. She left her wet hair loose because the thought of lifting a hair dryer made her nauseous with fatigue. She took a quick look in the mirror, then immediately felt her heart sink again. 

She missed her body, how it had felt before. It hadn’t felt like it was hers for a long time; she’d started to recover and then Ethan had waltzed right over that, marking her like he was a dog and she was a fire hydrant, and there was nothing left to do for her but lay still and let it happen. And now that he was out of her life, his presence still lingered. Where, at first, a bulky sweater would’ve still hidden the evidence, once she’d passed the thirty week mark she’d begun to balloon, the baby obtrusively poking its body out from between the panes of the suit jackets she’d always worn, kicking and fighting against the waistband of her pants. It made its presence known often and as noticeably as it could; sometimes, she’d be in the supermarket waiting in line at the register and it’d wake up and kick and squirm and make the whole mount move, leaving others to point and stare. Sometimes people even tried to grab her belly. Lena made sure they only tried once. 

But the baby wouldn’t be bullied into obedience so easily. It was making her body, once taut and muscular, go slack and flabby and soft. Her breasts had swollen painfully, and she’d had to go out and buy bras in sizes she didn’t think anyone but a porn star should have. Most of all, though, she hated the way that it was everywhere. Even when she’d managed to forget about it for one blissful second, either the baby would kick, often viciously, or she’d run into someone and no matter how well-intentioned, they would stare at Mount Lena before looking at her face. Even Jeffrey, who was clearly straining to treat her as he always did, often let his eyes wander down. She was used to men sizing her up, their eyes tracing her body; she wasn’t used to the way their faces changed now as they did it.

She pushed the thoughts aside as she went into the bedroom, slipped the stupid glitter boots on and, aiming for a brisk limp that would both take the pressure off her injured foot and hide from Jeffrey just how tired she was, went back into the living room. He was brushing through the book she’d left on the coffee table. Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca. It had been Nan’s pick. Lena wasn’t sure she liked it. 

“I haven’t read this since high school”, he told her. “Not sure I finished it.” 

“Right”, she said, not angling for a literary discussion. It was weird enough having him on her sofa. She waited for a second as he brushed through the book, feeling foolish, then asked: “So, nothing from Frank yet?”

“He called”, Jeffrey said, putting the book down and getting to his feet. “Nothing so far. Alabama hasn’t gotten back yet.”

“You’re going to involve the feds?”

“I don’t really have a choice”, he said. “Get your coat.”

“It’s in the machine. I’ll be fine without it.”

“Nonsense”, he said, struggling to get out of his own coat. He offered it to her, briefly, which made them both feel very awkward, then said nothing as he put it back on. She followed him to the car, clutching her purse, wondering if she’d ever feel less awkward around him again.

“How did she look to you?”, he asked after he’d backed out of the driveway. “Did she look malnourished?”

“Yes”, Lena said. “Although it might have been the way she was positioned. I could see her ribs and her skin seemed… Loose.”

“So you think - “

“ - whatever happened to her, it must’ve happened in the last few weeks.” She tried to visualise the woman in the water. Tentatively, she added: “she’d gotten a haircut fairly recently.”

“How can you tell?”

“Just the way it fell across her face.” She struggled to explain it. “Long hair, when it’s been cut, it stays kind of … thick, voluminous, even when it’s wet. If it hasn’t been cut for a while it’s stringier.” She paused. “Her left arm was above the water. I didn’t see any needlemarks either.”

“So she’s otherwise well-fed and healthy”, Jeffrey said. “No drug problem that we know of. We’ll ask the doctors to check that, but... “

“It seems weird”, she agreed. “White young women go missing…”

“... Their parents call”, Jeffrey agreed, and briefly, she felt the joy and pride she’d often experienced before, working on a case and knowing they were on the same line. But then they arrived at the clinic, and as he helped her out of the car he told her: “I called ahead. Hareton Earnshaw is on duty.”

Lena suppressed a groan. Hare’s antics were the last thing she needed.

She limped into the building under the watchful yet bored eye of the shift nurse, who lazily pointed down the hallway.

“Exam three’s free”, she said. “Doctor will be with you shortly.” She made no attempts to help them. Lena saw Jeffrey eyeing one of the wheelchairs that stood, a little forlornly, beside the waiting room, so took the lead and limped ahead of him towards the exam room. 

She’d expected him to drop her off and head off, or maybe wait in the waiting room, but he followed her into the exam room and sat down in the only chair, leaving her to squirm up on the table. Her foot felt like it was about to fall off. She wondered what would happen if she’d ask him to leave.

“Have you checked with the dean?”, she asked him, hoping to keep the conversation going. “She might be a college student.”

He shook his head. “I don’t buy it. I mean, we’re looking into it obviously, but…”

“Someone would’ve missed her by now”, Lena said. 

“Maybe if it’d been the start of term she wouldn’t have been missed, but even then someone would’ve said something. Her roommates, classmates…” He was right, she knew. Even if the girl hadn’t been popular, she would have had group work, assignments that she’d missed. The weight loss hadn’t been overnight, either. She would have been missing for a week or two at the very least. 

“Maybe she only started at half term”, Lena suggested, but she had to admit it seemed unlikely. 

The door opened, and Hareton Earnshaw came in with his usually bombastic attitude. 

“Evenin’”, he bellowed cheerfully, then halted in his tracks as he saw her. “Detective Adams, what have I told you about swallowing watermelon seeds?”

She sent him a look that had brought hardened criminals to tears, and he curled up his lower lip in a melodramatic pout. “At least one of us thinks I’m funny.” He rolled over a stool and sat down. “It’s me. I think I’m funny. Get it?”

“Excuse me”, Jeffrey said, pulling his phone out of his pocket, either because he had a phone call or because he wanted to get away from Hare’s attempts at levity. Hare shrugged as he left the room.  
“He hates it that I’m prettier than him.”

“I bet”, Lena said dryly. 

“I heard you found a body”, Hare said. “Rumour has it you nearly got mauled to death by a Pomeranian.”

“It was a dachshund, and he stole my shoes.”

“Ah”, he said, glancing at the glittery boots. “I was wondering about that. They look good on you, though.”

“Oh, shut up”, she snapped, and he gave her a victorious grin before asking her: “so if not dog bites, what brings you here?”

“I cut my foot when I was in the water”, she said. “The EMTs patched me up, told me to get it looked at.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do”, he said placidly. She let him take off her shoe; she hadn’t bothered to wear socks. Reaching down was hard enough as it was. He winced when he saw the cut on the sole.  
“That looks painful. Can you still put weight on it?”

“Sure”, she said, crossing her arms, wishing he’d get it over with. “It’s just a cut.”

“It’s pretty deep. I’ll put in a couple of stitches.” He got up and began to rummage around in a cupboard. She glanced down at her foot, but the cut was on the arch and she couldn’t see it. Her foot looked pale and swollen under the fluorescent lights; she flexed her toes and felt a jolt of pain shoot through her tendons.

“So why were you out there?”, Hare asked her. “In the middle of nowhere?”

“Just out for a walk.” She shifted uncomfortably, trying to look and not look at the same time at what Hare was doing. 

“Out there? On your own?”

“I can take care of myself”, she said irritably. He chuckled. “I have no doubt.” He wheeled a table over to her and sat down on a small stool so he could get at her foot. “I’m going to clean it again, I’ll give you a local anaesthetic and a couple of sutures. Shouldn’t take long.” He began to dab at the cut with a wad of gauze; she sucked on her teeth as the antiseptic bit into the wound. 

“Sorry”, he said. “This won’t take long. When was your last tetanus booster?”

“This morning”, she told him. 

It had not been a good morning. The nurse behind the reception desk had been disproportionately angry at her for forgetting her appointment card, and the nurse who’d put her in the exam room had been overly condescending and kept calling her ‘mommy’; her blood pressure, which had been steadily creeping upwards for weeks, had now apparently crossed the threshold from being unusual to being alarming, and her doctor had told her in no uncertain terms that she needed to come in twice every week from now on, and Lena’s protestations had fallen on deaf ears. And to top it all off, a third nurse had appeared and had not only insisted in taking her blood but jabbing a second needle into her arm as well. She hated needles, no matter how often they poked her with them. The fact that Hare was about to stick her with one for the third time that day did not help to improve her mood. 

“Big pinch”, he mumbled as he jabbed a needle into the cut, and she gritted her teeth. 

“Jesus”, she hissed, trying to resist the temptation to pull her foot away. “Christ, that hurts.”

“I know”, he said. “You’re doing great.” She breathed a sigh of relief when he put the syringe down. “Last person I did this to I had to scrape off the ceiling, so you get a lollypop when we’re done.”

She opened her mouth to tell him off, but then Jeffrey came back into the room. He didn’t bother knocking. 

“No news yet”, he said when he saw her face. “I texted Sara, asked her to call me back. I thought it might be one of her patients.”

“Did she - “

“I didn’t have a lot to go on”, Jeffrey interrupted her. “She’ll be able to check her files if she can manage to wrangle her way into the system from a distance.”

“I heard she’s at a conference”, Hare said. “Swanky hotel, mimosas with George Clooney by the pool… I picked the wrong specialty.” 

Jeffrey ignored him. “I’ve contacted the school principal, asked him for some old year books. She might be in one of them. I’ll have you take a look at them tomorrow.”

Her heart leaped at the thought of being officially involved in the investigation, but she tried not to let it show. “You still think she’s local then?”

“No, but we have to rule it out. You think you can make a positive ID?”

“It’s worth a shot”, she said. Jeffrey continued: “I called the GBI. They’ll get back to me. We’ve started searching the woods but it’s gotten too dark. We’ll pick it up in the morning.”

Her hands itched to be part of the team. She missed the mix of tension and boredom of milling around, waiting for the evidence to drip into the office, finding that one piece that solved the puzzle. 

“Did you talk to the hospital again?”, she asked. He shook his head. “They said they’d call when she wakes up. If she wakes up.” He looked at Hare, threading wire through her foot, then turned pale and looked away. “They wouldn’t give me an estimate on her survival rate. They’ve sent over some pictures for comparison.”

“I’ll go through NamUS”, she told him. NamUS, the national missing persons database, was a cumbersome and unreliable beast and matching up photos of an emaciated person at death’s door to the ‘before’ pictures was difficult and notoriously unreliable. This was the sort of job that she would normally be more than happy to pawn off to someone else, but it was beckoning her now, seductively luring her over. Suddenly she couldn’t stand the idea of staying at home watching TV one more day. 

“You are on leave”, Jeffrey admonished her, and she managed to look contrite, but she knew he’d cave. 

“I can sit behind a desk and look at pictures”, she said. “It makes sense. I’m the only one here who saw her.”

“If you’re sure you’re up to it”, Jeffrey said, just as Hare told her: “As good as new. You’ll have a really cool scar. Keep it dry for the next three days and come back in tomorrow so we can change the bandages.” He tossed the suture kit into the trash, then jacked his thumb in the direction of the door and told Jeffrey: “You. Out.”

“I was just - “, Jeffrey began, but Hare cut him off. “The lady needs a checkup and she doesn’t need you there. Scoot.” Jeffrey glanced at her, briefly, and before she could tell Hare that she was fine and that she’d had a doctor’s appointment that very morning, he disappeared. 

“There”, Hare said, and he picked up the blood pressure cuff from its mount on the wall. “Arm, please.”

“I’m fine”, she told him. “I’ve had a checkup this morning.”

“All the same”, he said. “You’re not leaving here until I get what I want.”

“Watch me”, she snapped, but she let him wrap the cuff around her arm. 

“It’s a little high”, he said as he deflated it. “Do you remember what it was this morning?”

“What’s it now?”, she demanded. 

“One forty over ninety-one”, he said. “Which, I have to say, is right at the threshold.”

“It was the same this morning and Pendergast thought it was fine.” Abigail Pendergast was her OBGYN. Lena hated the woman, both because she was a doctor and because of her personality.  
“Alright. Are they having you in for extra checks? Because - “

“Twice a week”, she said, with some resignation. He nodded. “Good. Lie down, please.”

“Hare, I’m fine”, she insisted. “I just fell over and hurt my foot.”

“We’re extra careful with pregnant women”, he told her. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed by now. Lie down, lift your shirt for me please.” When he saw her face, he added: “fastest way to get me out of your hair, I promise.” 

She grumbled, but in the end she caved, though she let him tug up her dress on his own. She closed her eyes as he wrapped his hands around her protruding abdomen, sticking defiantly up in the air like the world’s thickest middle finger. 

“Baby still moving?”, he asked, and she hemmed noncommittally. As to confirm, the baby squirmed, and the skin on her abdomen seemed to ripple. She closed her eyes. They made her uncomfortable, these alien movements. She had no control over them. 

“Do you know what you’re having?”, Hare asked. She shook her head and hoped that he would hurry. 

“Any headaches? Pain or a tight feeling in your upper - “

“I don’t have pre-eclampsia”, she snapped. “I told you, I’m fine.” 

“All the same, I’d like to keep you here overnight”, he said as he helped her up. She shook his hand off and told him: “I’d like to win the lottery, but that’s not happening either.”

“It’s only for one night”, Hare said calmly, and she realised he’d anticipated her protests. “Would you be able to live with yourself if something went wrong?”

“Like what?” She slid off the table, though when she tried to put weight on her foot it hurt so much that she swore. 

“It’ll be tender for a few days”, Hare said. “I’ll get you some crutches in the morning.”

“I am not staying here”, she reiterated, snatching her purse from its resting place and clamping it to her chest. “And I don’t need crutches.” To her relief, he gave up. 

“Alright, but if baby stops moving - “

“Then I’ll call”, she said, feeling relieved. 

There was no news as Jeffrey drove her home. The girl was still in hospital, still in critical condition, and still nobody had a clue as to who she was. She found herself going over the afternoon in her head. Had she missed anything? Any signs? There hadn’t been much to go on.

She asked Jeffrey: “How old was she?”

“Hm?”, he said, clearly distracted. “They don’t know.”

“They didn’t check?”

“They did.” X-rays could sometimes reveal these things, she knew. “They think she’s in her late teens to early twenties.”

“So she might still be a college student.” It was remarkable how easily they slipped into these roles, she thought. Probably because they both knew how to handle these patterns. Unlike most people, Jeffrey avoided looking at her swollen stomach, which she appreciated, but at the same time he seemed uncomfortable around her. Knowing what he knew she could hardly blame him for that, but it disappointed her too, this unspoken regret and awkwardness between them. At least when there was a case they both knew what to talk about. 

“I’ll call other colleges in the area in the morning.”

“She might have been working on an exchange project”, Lena said. Grant Tech was a small college and it sometimes cooperated with other colleges in the area. It was a long shot, but there was little else to go on. “Did they check her dental records?”

“Working on it. Nothing so far.” He paused. “Some of her teeth were severely damaged.”

“On purpose, or…”

“Beats me”, he said quietly, then slowed down and parked in front of the house. Her car was in the driveway; she’d given the keys to Brad earlier that day and he must have brought it back. She asked: “So were there any signs of - “, but Jeffrey cut her off. 

“I don’t like any of this”, he said. “You are on leave. There’s a reason for that.”

“I’m pregnant, not an invalid”, she snapped, then tried to steady her voice when she saw his face. “Sorry. I just… But I can help.”

He seemed tempted, briefly, but then he shook his head resolutely. “No. You’re coming in to look at pictures tomorrow, but that’s it.” 

She suppressed a flare of anger, and said: “We’ll see how it goes.”

“I mean it, Lena”, he said, and he got out of his car to signify the end of the conversation. She opened the door on her own side and pulled herself up with some difficulty before Jeffrey could offer her his hand again. They stood in the driveway, awkwardly, for a beat or two before she said: “alright. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“If you’re in before ten”, he said as he got back into his car, “I’m sending you home.”

It was late, she noticed, much later than she’d thought. The clock on the oven told her was past midnight. She kicked off the tacky boots and limped into the bedroom, tying her hair into a ponytail, thinking about the girl. The woman? She was probably at that awkward age where you were neither, where the law said you had the responsibilities and rights of an adult but you weren’t one, really. Lena certainly hadn’t been at that age, though honestly, she sometimes felt as if adulthood had escaped her entirely. Other people found a partner, got married. They paid off their mortgages and went out for drinks with friends on weekends. 

They had children. 

Children that were planned and welcome. Children that they knew how to raise. 

She understood it wasn’t that simple, really - for one, she’d be out of a job if everyone knew how to raise a child - but Lena felt like she was lagging behind. It was middle school algebra all over again: she’d tried, briefly, but she’d been behind from the start and when she hadn’t been able to catch up she’d given up entirely. That was how it had always gone; as soon as things got difficult she ran away or stuck her head into the sand until she couldn’t anymore. 

She considered sleeping in her clothes, but then she’d be out of things to wear tomorrow so she undressed and made herself fold the leggings and the dress and put them on the chair that stood, a little forlornly, in the corner of the room. She didn’t bother putting on pajamas and slid in between the sheets wearing nothing but a pair of underpants and a tank top. Her body felt bone tired, her eyes burning with fatigue. Her arm was sore from the shot they’d given her that morning and her foot began to sting now that the local anaesthetic was wearing off, and of course, now that she was lying still the baby began to kick up a fuss, as if it was trying to burst out. Lena gave a frustrated sigh and closed her eyes, hoping it would soon stop.  
For a moment, the baby stopped moving, but then it stretched its legs, and a painfully hard lump appeared just below her ribs. She put her hand over it, trying to push it back; after a few seconds, it seemed to give in and the lump disappeared, but then it began to turn and twist again, and she could feel its back slide along her insides. It made the hair on her arm stand up with revulsion. She curled up on her side, hoping it would stop.

From an elementary point of view, she understood why most women enjoyed being pregnant. There was a sense of expectation and excitement, a long-held wish finally becoming reality. But most women chose to be pregnant. Lena had had no say in it. The baby had just showed up one day, announcing its presence long before she’d dared to take a pregnancy test. They’d gotten off on the wrong foot almost immediately. Irrationally, she sometimes thought that it was taking its revenge for the fact that she’d considered terminating her pregnancy by providing her with an endless list of complaints that her doctor and the internet had assured her were all part of the programme: heartburn, lower back pain, headaches, fatigue, mood swings, even small things like the metallic taste in her mouth or the fact that eggs suddenly repulsed her. Her breasts had been so swollen and sore that just getting up in the mornings had been unbearable until she’d started wearing a sports bra to bed. 

Ethan used to love squeezing her breasts so hard that his fingertips had been imprinted almost like permanent bruises; it would hurt at the best of times but once she got pregnant the pain was so bad that one time, she’d passed out. When she woke up, she’d been naked and he’d been asleep beside her, snoring contentedly. 

The incident was disturbing enough on its own, but it bothered her for a different reason too. Ethan was a smart man. He would have noticed the difference, and he would have known what it meant. She was beginning to show when he’d seen her up close for the last time, not in an obvious way, but he was with her enough that he should’ve put two and two together. Yet he’d never said anything. He’d never let on. 

Of course, that wasn’t his style. 

Her phone was on the nightstand, charging, and she picked it up, scrolling through the menu until she got to her voicemail. She pressed the dial button, then put the phone to her ear, waiting impatiently for the computerised voice to get through its litany. The two second window that the Georgia State Prison offered for the inmate to say his name wasn’t much, but it was enough. 

“We’re not through.”

It was always this, some cryptic message that told her absolutely nothing. It was possible that he knew, that he had asked one of his shady connections to keep an eye on her, that he was planning his move right now, as she lay in bed, hoping sleep would come. Chances were equally great that he was bullshitting her, yanking her chain just because he could, marking her as his property even from behind bars. 

She replayed the message once, then twice, again and again, and she told herself she did so to try and read his voice, but there was nothing. 

She woke up to the ringing of her phone. Dizzy and confused, she picked it up, put it to her ear, but the screen was black, and she blinked. It took her a moment to realise it wasn’t her phone that was ringing, it was the doorbell, not just once, but several times, insistently and urgently. Still drunk with sleep, she stumbled from her bed, only remembering to put on her bathrobe at the last second. Too late, she remembered her injured foot, and though the jolt of pain woke her up properly she swore loudly as she limped towards the door, angry at being woken up at this ungodly hour more than anything, until she opened it and saw Jeffrey standing there, looking unusually flustered. In a flash of modesty she pulled the cowl of her bathrobe over her chest. 

“I’m really sorry, Lena”, he said. “I need you to come with me. We found something.”


	4. Chapter 4

It was a plain black backpack of the sort that was, and had been, on the back of every other high school student since the invention of backpacks. Lena had had one herself, though she’d mostly used it for make-up and smuggling illicit booze rather than to carry school books. She wasn’t sure it had been the same backpack as this one, though it seemed likely as the name LENA ADAMS had been stencilled on the inside, in big angry letters, with correction fluid. 

The bag had been found early that morning by the search team that had been scouting the woods for evidence. So far, this was the only thing that had come up, aside from a large plastic sheet and synthetic rope so common it could be bought at just about any hardware store. It wouldn’t yield much, if anything - unlike this backpack. 

She felt Jeffrey’s eyes burn a hole in her back as she gingerly picked it up.

“So this is definitely yours?”, he asked her. “This isn’t someone playing a prank?”

“I don’t know”, she said tentatively. “It’s a pretty generic backpack.”

“It has your name on it”, Jeffrey said, as if he were talking to a toddler. “Do you own or have you ever owned a backpack like that?”

She didn’t like the way he phrased the question. 

“It looks like one I used to have, I think”, she said, though she remembered buying it. Hank had taken them shopping in Augusta, a week or so before they were due to start high school. Augusta was hardly a metropole, but it had felt like the big city back then. The store hadn’t had much to choose from; when compared to their classmates, Lena and Sibyl hardly had any right to complain - at least they had a new pair of jeans to put on at the start of term, and didn’t have to haul their books around in a plastic shopping bag - but the store offered only one type of backpack, in dull black, dour grey or lurid pink. Sibyl had picked the black one and so Lena had, too. She had stencilled their names into them after a week, because everyone was doing it. She vaguely remembered switching out her own bag, which had a stain that wouldn’t come out on the front compartment, with Sibyl’s, though she wasn’t sure if she remembered it correctly. 

“Lena”, Jeffrey said slowly, “why is your backpack in the middle of the forest the day after you found Jane Doe there?”

“Beats me”, she said. Jeffrey opened his mouth, and she knew he was going to yell at her then, but his phone rang and he picked it up with a scowl in her direction that said they weren’t through. 

She swallowed and sat down as he took the call. 

“Tolliver”, he said, then listened, balled his fist, and slammed it on the table.

“Tell me you’re joking.” He paused. “Any casualties?” 

She pulled up an inquisitive eyebrow, but he ignored her. “Fire brigade on the scene yet? No, I’ll be right there.” He put the phone down without saying goodbye. As he put his coat on, he told Lena: “I’m asking Brad to drive you home. Stay there until I tell you you can leave.” He was out the door before she had the chance to ask him what was going on. 

She struggled to get to her feet and made for the door, then paused at the backpack on the desk. It had been wrapped in a large clear evidence bag, and she picked it up. It was well-worn but the tough nylon fibers were durable and it was still intact, save for the front zipper which was coming undone at the seam. She frowned. Had her backpack done that? She couldn’t remember. Then again, she couldn’t remember when she’d seen this bag last. She was pretty sure she hadn’t taken it with her when she’d moved to her current house, but anything beyond that was a blur. She did not know, and she probably never would, no matter how much she strained to remember. 

She dropped the bag quickly, like it was burning her fingers, and walked out. 

As soon as she left the office she heard sirens in the distance, and the squad room was strangely empty, save for a lone patrolman - a newbie, not someone she recognised - milling about in the back, clearly resentful at being left behind. 

“Chief said for you to wait here until Brad drives you back”, Marla said from behind her desk, and instead of arguing the point, she asked: “what’s that all about?”  
“Apparently”, Marla sniffed disapprovingly, “Someone blew up half the college.”


	5. Chapter 5

At least Brad was happy to see her, she thought wryly. He was chatty, asked her how she was, and though she kept her answers short, she appreciated it. She didn’t think very highly about Brad most of the time but at the very least, he didn’t judge. Being unmarried and pregnant was enough for most of the town to pretend like Lena was a bag of shit, something heavy and disgusting that was best ignored until someone carried it off to where it belonged, but Brad didn’t care. Brad was happy for her because he liked babies. There was something to be said for the simplicity of the thought. 

As he blathered on about his various nieces and nephews she tuned out and thought about Jeffrey, and how angry he had been. Lord knew it wasn’t the first time he’d been mad at her, but that had always been her own fault. It had still stung, but this almost hurt more because Lena had no idea how her bag had ended up on that hill, or how that woman had ended up in the water, or how the two were connected. 

If they were even connected.

“Lena?”, Brad asked, and she realised she’d missed something.

“Sorry, I just….”

“Nodded off?” He smiled at her reassuringly, and she was back to wanting to punch him. “My sister did that all the time when she was pregnant with her third.”

She sent him a look that she hoped would shut him up. Instead, he said: “Chief told me to tell you to stay put. Do you need me to get you groceries or anything?”

“I can get my own groceries, Brad”, she snapped. “I’m not an invalid.”

“My sister said that all the time too”, he said cheerfully. “But you can’t leave the house until Jeffrey says so. He specifically told me to tell you that.”

“Well, you did”, she told him. “Duly noted.”

“So, do you - “

“I’m all set.” She could still order a fucking pizza, never mind what doctor Pendergast thought of that. 

“Alright”, Brad said placidly, and she was torn between wanting to apologise and throttle him. He was so damn complacent. He didn’t even seem to mind that he’d been relegated to being Jeffrey’s errand boy while the rest of the team dealt with whatever was going on at the college. 

Brad hadn’t known any more than Marla, and Marla wasn’t letting on, but a few months ago a local amateur news reporter had opened up a website detailing all the local news. In between church bake sales and lost dogs it occasionally managed to get something interesting and Lena had made it a habit to check the site regularly. Twice already she’d managed to haul in someone for petty crime because they’d used the comment section to reveal themselves, or because their friends had done it for them. 

There wasn’t much news here, either, though someone had posted pictures of a building, engulfed in flames and dark, billowing smoke. She dropped her purse in the hallway as she browsed her phone. She knew that building. It was where Ethan had done most of his research. 

It sent a jolt of fear through her. Yesterday she might have considered it all one big coincidence, but this was too much. The bag with her name on it. Her bag. Now this. She felt her throat clench. Her abdomen went hard again, uncomfortably so, and she exhaled tersely.

It was probably nothing, she told herself. A coincidence. Ethan hadn’t been in that lab for months and even if it had been him, why would he blow it up? What was in it for him? 

Knowing Ethan, there was probably someone in there he hated, but that had nothing to do with her. 

Did it?

She took another frustrated breath to force herself to relax, but it didn’t work. Of course it didn’t. Lena had never been the sort of person to whom breathing exercises had made any kind of difference whatsoever, and the stuff that did work was off limits. Alcohol would put her on CPS’s immediate shit list and as for sex, well, Lena would be perfectly happy if she’d never have to fuck anyone ever again.  
Still, she went over to the sofa and lay down flat on her back, like doctor Pendergast had told her to do, trying to steady her breathing. The baby was still; it usually stopped moving when her stomach went hard like this. Doctor Pendergast had told her the baby’s movements were normal, but the fact that her uterus kept doing this was not. It hadn’t surprised Lena. Apparently being pregnant was just one of the many things she failed at. Motherhood was going to be the next one, and she’d end up one of those bitter women whose children didn’t talk to them. 

Eventually the cramp subsided, and she picked up her phone again. The website had little more than a few blurry pictures from a distance - it mostly dealt in speculation anyway - though the comment section was full of people who thought it was probably a terrorist attack, and the comment section was riddled with thinly veiled and not-so thinly veiled allusions to muslims and unspecified brown people slipping across the border. Others thought it was probably students trying to make a few extra bucks by creating a meth lab. None of it appeared very likely to her, but then again, neither did the fact that a building could just explode on its own. She was far from an expert, but from what both Ethan and Sybil had told her Grant College didn’t exactly harbour a lot of dangerous chemicals. 

She spent a few minutes browsing through the comment section, but aside from baseless speculation and racial epithets there was little of value. She considered texting Jeffrey to tell him she’d already scoped it out, but he would probably chew her out for it. 

Maybe she should call Ethan, see if she could get anything out of him. 

The thought flashed through her mind and sent shivers down her spine, but at the same time she wondered: what if? He craved her attention, she knew that much, so she had something to bargain with. He might tell her more than he’d intended.

But he’d want to meet face to face, she realised with a sinking feeling, and that was out of the question. There wasn’t a muumuu large enough to cover up the bulge growing on her stomach right now.  
Worse, the mere thought of facing him again made her heart race, and her abdomen went rock solid again. She put the phone down, closed her eyes, and tried to push him from her mind, like she’d been doing for months now. It didn’t work. It never did. 

To her surprise, Jeffrey called her later that day, when she was halfway through clearing out the refrigerator. 

“Sorry about leaving you in the dark this morning”, he said. “Did you get home okay?”

“Sure”, she said, eager to get to the juicy details. “What’s going on at the college?”

“Fire department tells me it’s probably some sort of incendiary device that went off in in the Jellicoe building”, he told her. “Though they’re not sure yet. They can’t be until the place has cooled down enough for them to get in there.”

“Any casualties?”

“They don’t know who was in the lab. They’re supposed to keep a list but apparently nobody does. The dean has been yelling at people a lot over the past couple of hours.” He sighed. “Other than that, there’s some smoke inhalation and this idiot burned his hands when he tried to grab one of those mouse cages.” 

“I’m sure the mice were grateful”, she said, and Jeffrey gave a humourless laugh.

“Place is a mess. The building’ll have to be condemned and the mayor is looking for someone’s ass to blame. I’m hoping it’s not mine.”

She briefly hesitated, wondering if she should tell him about Ethan, but then he spoke up again and the moment was gone. 

“I’m really sorry, but I can’t take this and Jane Doe at the same time.”

“I can - “, she began, but he cut her off. 

“You are not doing anything”, he said sharply. “I called in the FBI. They’re taking over.” Almost as an afterthought, he added: “Sorry, Lena.”

Sorry. She knew what he’d meant by that. 

Normally, they would have sorted it out themselves, quietly, behind the scenes, and it would have been awkward enough, what with her bag being there, but Jeffrey would have been nothing if not professional and in the end it would all have turned out to be a big misunderstanding. It had to be. 

The FBI would not be that kind. For one, they’d have Lena on the sidelines, ready to be their performing monkey: there when they wanted her to, but never in charge. Worse, they’d consider her a suspect. They’d be mad not to; it was all a little too convenient. 

It had to be a coincidence. 

After she’d finished Jeffrey’s call, she went into the spare bedroom, the one that was supposed to be the baby’s room. It was nothing of the sort; as of yet, it was filled with debris, moving boxes she hadn’t had the energy to unpack yet, piled neatly in the corner. She opened the first one, impatiently ripping through the tape. Old cassettes, some clothes, picture frames - nothing. She opened the second box, then the third one. The backpack wasn’t there. 

Of course, it was possible that she’d thrown it out years ago, or that she’d lost it when she’d moved houses. It wasn’t exactly a sentimental item. She had no idea when she’d last had it. 

She sighed, and began to stuff the items back into their boxes, ignoring the pain in her back as she did so. Her eye caught an old picture, and she lingered briefly. She didn’t remember taking the picture, but she recognised who was in it: Greg Mitchell, her ex. They’d been at a football game - she recognised the stadium, though she couldn’t remember who’d been playing. He wasn’t looking at the camera, but at the field, a coy smile toying on his lips, hands tucked nonchalantly into the pockets of his well-worn jeans, clearly enjoying himself. It all seemed so long ago, though it couldn’t have been more than four or five years since they’d split up. Seeing his face sent a surge of longing through her that she wasn’t prepared for, and suddenly, she felt tears sting the corners of her eyes, and the silence of the house seemed to press down on her, to suffocate her. She’d messed it up, their relationship, just like she’d messed up everything else. 

Christ, she hadn’t even bought a crib yet. 

Suddenly furious, she stuffed the picture back into the box haphazardly, and she was about to close it up when she saw that he had a black backpack on his back.

She took out the picture again and held it up to the light so she could see, but it only offered a side view. 

It was a plain black backpack. It might have been hers. It might have been his. It could have been anybody’s.


	6. Chapter 6

Lena had dealt with FBI agents before and in her experience, they were aloof and distant, swooping in and out, taking all the evidence and all the credit. She’d once spent a day being interviewed by them and it had not been the best day of her life. The word ‘reciprocal’ was not in their vocabulary; they’d come, they’d seen her, and they’d left with a noncommittal and insincere “thanks for your effort.” The GBI wasn’t great, but the feds were worse, much worse, and this time, at the very least, she’d be a person of interest.  
She’d expected at least two of them, tall men with crew cuts and ill-fitting suits, but when she dutifully but reluctantly showed up at the station in the morning she was met by a very tired-looking Jeffrey and a tiny blonde woman whom he introduced to her as Special Agent Colvin.   
“I’ll leave you two to it”, he said, before leaving abruptly, and she felt a little betrayed until he sent her a look over his shoulder that let her know that he might not be in the room, but he was keeping an eye out.   
“Detective Adams?”, the woman said as she reached out her hand; Lena tried to resist the temptation to squeeze it painfully tightly. “Nice to meet you. Thank you for coming in. I understand you’re on maternity leave?”  
“Evidently”, Lena snapped, then wished she hadn’t. The woman’s face remained pleasant enough. She had a kind but entirely blank face that made Lena feel like she was bouncing off a wall.  
“Your boss told me we’re free to use his office. Shall we go in there?” She didn’t wait for the answer, and Lena followed her into the room feeling, if not like a lamb being led to the slaughter, then at the very least like a teenager heading into an exam she hadn’t studied for.   
“He seems to be a little preoccupied”, the woman said. “I heard there was an explosion of sorts yesterday?”  
“Apparently”, Lena said, trying to keep her voice dully flat.   
“Meth lab?”  
“We do have other sorts of crime, you know”, she said irritably, then immediately regretted it. Still, the woman’s accent was grating, and she balked at the thought of some Northerner swooping in here and concluding that it was all mobile oxy clinics and whatever else she’d seen on Justified that week.   
“Oh, I know”, she said, still a little too pleasantly. “But one would assume this wasn’t the result of a heated debate of the chess club, regardless of its location.”  
“I wouldn’t know what it was”, Lena said curtly, and the woman sent her a sideways glance as she passed into Jeffrey’s office. She closed the door behind them.   
“Have a seat”, she said superfluously. “Can I get you anything to drink?”  
“I’m fine”, Lena told her, quietly hoping the lack of coffee would send the woman jonesing for a caffeine fix and out of the office sooner rather than later. The woman didn’t seem to mind, though. She took Jeffrey’s seat behind the desk. She looked almost comically small in it, Lena thought with some vindication. Not that she was any taller herself.  
“So”, Special Agent Colvin began. “Detective Adams. I’ll be upfront: I’ve read your FBI file.”  
If she hadn’t been pissed off enough yet, that would’ve done it.   
“I didn’t know I had one.”  
“Most law enforcement staff have one, especially if they’ve been involved in violent crime.” She gave a meaningful pause. “One way or another.”  
Oh, Lena thought, that, and she hoped the dodgy fluorescent light hid the way her face paled. “Well, I hope you enjoyed yourself.”  
“Not really.” Special Agent Colvin leaned back in the seat, pensively running her hand over the blotter. “Look, I know me being here pisses you off, and I know me reading your file isn’t going to do anything to ameliorate that - “  
“It doesn’t”, Lena said. Ameliorate. Who talked like that?  
“- but it’d be dishonest to pretend I hadn’t”, she continued. “I also know I can keep telling you I’m not the enemy here, but it’s not going to hit home.”  
“Probably not.”   
“So we’re in a quandary. You’re going to sit here, be pissed off, answer me in not much more than monosyllabic words, possibly because you just don’t like me and possibly because you don’t want to get yourself in trouble, possibly both, and we’re all going to leave here with a dissatisfied feeling because we won’t have gotten anywhere.”  
“That’s how it usually goes, yes”, Lena said, perfectly pleasantly.   
“So let’s avoid that, shall we? You’re not a suspect, as far as I’m concerned.”  
“Though you wouldn’t tell me if I was”, Lena pointed out.   
“True, but let’s look at the evidence. You found the girl. Your bag was found in the forest. It’s suspicious, sure, but there are some things that bother me. There are two possible scenarios here. Either it’s a crime of opportunity; someone sees a pretty girl and snatches her, has his - or her - way with her for a few days, then dumps her somewhere. In which case, let’s be honest, we can’t rule out a woman, but it’s less likely, especially a single woman like yourself who’s not in the position to go dragging dead weights anywhere and put up a fight with an otherwise healthy young person.”  
“It’s unlikely”, Lena admitted, though she thought: but not impossible.   
“The other option is a more professional operation, maybe forced prostitution or human trafficking. Now, hypothetically, if you HAD been involved, leaving your bag up there would have been a colossal mistake. Not something a hardened criminal or a detective would do.”  
“Probably not”, Lena said.   
“Right. So you’re not on my suspect list any more than you need to be.”  
“Good to know.” She wasn’t buying it, for one single reason: she knew that backpack was the only lead. Agent Colvin was right, it would have been inconceivably stupid to bring a bag with her name on it and leave it there, but they both knew people screwed up often enough.  
“How’s the girl?”, she asked, hoping to change the subject.  
“You didn’t think you should lead with that?”, the woman replied, and Lena shrugged.   
“I didn’t think you’d tell me.” Usually, FBI agents were far from forthcoming. If anything they’d want to know why she was asking. Apparently common decency wasn’t an acceptable answer.   
“She’s still unconscious”, Agent Colvin said, and Lena thought: good. The other woman continued: “I called the hospital before I got here. She’s in critical condition. She has several fractures on both arms and on her left leg, a concussion and a subarachnoid hematoma, whatever that may be.”  
“Superficial bleeding in the brain”, Lena clarified, and the woman chuckled. “I guess you’ve been at more autopsies than I have.” She pressed on: “the broken leg’s bad apparently. It’s an open fracture. They set it in surgery yesterday, but they’re pretty sure it’ll get infected so they’re considering amputation. She’s also anemic and she has pneumonia. The odds aren’t great.”  
“I’m surprised she’s still alive”, Lena admitted. Agent Colvin nodded, then seemed to think something over; Lena waited patiently until she spoke up again.   
“Can you take me to the place where you found her?”  
“Sure.” She struggled to get to her feet and made her way over to the door, but Agent Colvin stopped her.   
“Wait. I need to give you The Speech.”  
“You’re going to read me my rights?”, Lena asked incredulously, and the woman laughed. “No, not that speech. The other one. The one you’ve probably heard way too often.” She put on her coat. “Look, I’ve been pregnant. It sucks when people think you’re handicapped just because you’ve managed to get yourself impregnated, so I’m not going to keep asking you if you’re okay, but you need to tell me if I’m asking too much, alright?”  
“Alright”, Lena said, slightly nonplussed. In the back of her mind the thought formed that she was exactly the wrong person to say this too, but she pushed it away. Surely the alternative - sitting on a sofa, thinking about Ethan - was more stressful than a quick hike, one that she’d taken only two days before?   
“I’ll drive”, she said. 

“It’s nice here”, Agent Colvin said as they stood by the bank. “I can see why you come to this place.”  
No, you can’t, Lena thought, but she kept her mouth shut. Agent Colvin pointed to the bank where girl had been. “That’s the spot, right?”  
“Yes.”  
“So she was here, in the water - “ She traced her finger up the slope - “and there was rope and plastic entangled in the trees on the incline.”  
“Yes.”  
“And aside from your backpack, there was nothing up on that hill.”  
“Some tire tracks. Generic tires, probably from a truck, medium load.”  
“Is there a dirt road up there?”  
“An unofficial one, but it goes from nowhere to nowhere.”  
“Locals don’t use it?”  
“No. Farmers use it to get to their farmland sometimes, but it’s too narrow for most heavy machinery and if they get close to the edge of the incline, they might tip over.”  
“No hikers who might have been up there? Teenagers looking for privacy?”  
She shrugged again. “Not that I know of. Most people stick to the banks. It’s a small hill, no views or anything, and it’s hard to reach from down here.”  
“Hm”, Agent Colvin said. “I talked to your forensics guy. I forgot his name.”  
“Brian. Brian Heglund.”  
“Well, mr. Heglund said there were quite a few tire marks. More than one set, in any case.”  
Lena shrugged again, but she didn’t like where this was going.   
“I think people have been using it more than you think.” She looked up at the top of the hill. “How do I get up there?”  
“Either you drive through a muddy pasture and walk the rest of the way, or you climb”, Lena pointed out.   
“Can’t we drive up there?”, Agent Colvin inquired. She looked at the incline again, as if that would get her up there. “I left my hiking boots at home.”  
“Sure”, Lena said, thinking of the muddy fields and the woman’s nice rental car. “The roads are tricky, though.” Agent Colvin shrugged. “I’ll take my chances. If you want to stay behind, be my guest.”  
“I’ll come with you”, Lena said, knowing that if she didn’t, her involvement in the case would be over. Her stomach tightened again as she followed Agent Colvin to the car, but she ignored it.   
“I keep forgetting to ask”, the woman said as soon as they were in the car. “Is there a hotel near here that you’d recommend?”  
“There’s a motorcourt near the I-34”, Lena said. “Not sure how good it is.” It was shithole, she knew.   
“Sounds suitably nightmarish”, the woman said, and Lena shrugged again. “There’s not a lot of tourists in the area.”  
She didn’t reply but started the car. “Alright, let’s have a look.”

The forest was thick up here, Lena thought. She’d never been here, and not without reason; aside from trees and thick underbrush, there wasn’t much to see. There was a single narrow dirt road, more like a trail, precariously close to the edge, and not much else. Agent Colvin had parked her car at the start of the road and was now making her way up. Her heels had been caked in mud after only a few steps and Lena took some comfort in that, though her ugly boots weren’t faring much better. The woman looked down at her feet with some regret and said: “I liked those shoes.” To Lena’s surprise, she kicked them off and put them in the boot of her car, walking barefoot through the mud.   
“Are you sure?”, Lena asked, feeling the cut on her feet itch, but Agent Colvin shrugged. “It’s dirt, what’s the worst that could happen?”  
Lena said nothing.   
They made their way to the dirt road. She saw the yellow markers that the forensics team used, but not much else; a dirt road, close to the edge.   
“Isn’t corrosion a problem here?”, Agent Colvin asked, and Lena said: “I don’t know.”   
“Nobody’s ever fallen off here before?”  
“Not that I know of.”  
“It’s just that having a road, even a dirt trail, that close to the edge seems needlessly risky.” She walked over to the edge and peered downward. “I don’t think it’d take a lot for a car do fall down here.”  
“And yet it didn’t.”  
“No, but it would explain why she did. The car slipped, maybe hit some bumps. The tailgate or boot may have popped open if it was a dodgy car, and she might have fallen out and tipped over the edge.” She stared at it pensively. Lena had to admit it made sense. It was the only reason she could think of how the girl could’ve ended up out here.   
“You found rope up here, and a sheet of plastic, right?” Agent Colvin squatted near the edge, and Lena saw that the hem of her pants was caked in mud. “I think she fell, the rope snagged on some branches, and the plastic tore open. I bet that’s how she ended up in the water. It doesn’t tell us why she ended up in that truck, though, or why they wrapped her in plastic.”  
“They must have thought she was dead”, Lena said matter of factly. “Either that or they didn’t care.”   
“She would’ve died anyway”, Agent Colvin said. “She still might.” She struggled to get to her feet but her right foot slipped, and she ended up ass first in the mud. Lena didn’t bother to hide her smirk.   
“Great”, Agent Colvin groaned. To Lena’s surprise, the woman took off her jacket and tossed it at her.   
“Hold this.”  
“What are you doing?”, Lena asked in spite of herself. The woman mimicked her shrug and said: “Might as well.” She kneeled and inched herself over the incline feet first, and Lena watched, not entirely without jealousy, as she nimbly climbed down the incline.  
“Forensics already went through it”, she called down, but the woman replied: “I know. Just trying to get a feel for the area. My keys are in my jacket pocket. Can you get the car down here?”  
When Lena made it to the bank where the girl had been found, she found Agent Colvin sitting on the rock she’d sat on a few days before.  
“Christ, the water is cold”, Agent Colvin said. “Nearly cut my foot on this idiotically sharp rock.” She was covered in mud, her shirt was torn and there were leaves in her hair. “Not sure that was worth it. What do I get if I walk into the police station like this?”  
“An involuntary commitment, probably.”   
Agent Colvin chuckled and got up from the rock. “Sorry. Just trying to scout the area. That was fun, though. Can you drive me over to the hotel?”


	7. Chapter 7

When she got home, to her surprise, the front door was open and Hank’s truck was in the driveway. She groaned and leaned her forehead against the steering wheel before she put in the effort to get out of the car. She’d never thought Hank would let up on pestering her now that she was pregnant, but he’d been persistent to the point where she’d threatened him with a restraining order. It hadn’t worked - they both knew she would never go through with it - though he’d let up a little after that, and she hadn’t seen him for a week or two. Clearly, he was worried about her, and though he wasn’t wrong she resented the shit out of him for it.   
She slammed the front door shut and followed the sound of curse words coming in from the spare bedroom. She found him sitting amid a pile of wood and plastic furniture parts, squinting through his reading glasses at a manual.  
She forewent any greeting and said: “What the hell are you doing here?”  
“What does it look like I’m doing?”  
“I don’t know and I don’t care.” She stopped short of telling him to get out, though she desperately wanted to. Instead, she bent down with some difficulty to rip the manual from his hands. Her breath caught in her throat when she realised, far too late, that he was putting together a crib.   
“Gimme that”, he said angrily, pulling the booklet from her hands. He used it to point at her as he told her: “you can do with your life whatever you please but I’ll be damned if I let that kid of yours sleep on the floor.”  
“I didn’t - “  
“Sweetheart, I have no idea what’s going on in your head but you should’ve had this up by now.”  
She crossed her arms defensively. “I’m handling it.”  
“I can see that.” He gestured at the empty room. “You’re supposed to have this done months ago.”  
“Says who?”  
“Says the fucking books you didn’t read.” He pointed at the boxes in the corner of the room. “Get that shit cleared out.”  
“Or what?”  
“Or I’m leaving and you can sort this out for yourself.”   
“Fine by me”, she snapped, and turned and left. As she marched down the hallway, though, she felt her resolve fall away, and a hard lump began to form in her throat. Of course she hadn’t been thinking. She’d been avoiding this, just like she’d been avoiding everything else that was baby-related.  
Annoyed with herself, she sat down on the sofa, then groaned when she felt her stomach harden again. The baby, which had been squirming up to that point, went very still, and once more she felt guilty. She put her hand on her stomach, but the child wouldn’t move, and she had to bite her lip to stop herself from bawling like a little kid.   
“For fuck’s sake, Lena - “ Hank began as he entered the room, but he stopped in his tracks when he saw her face. Quickly, she got up and pulled the box he’d been carrying from his hands.   
“I got it.”  
“You shouldn’t carry - “  
“I said I got it”, she snapped, and she took the box over to the dinner table, turning her back to him so that he couldn’t see her face. Her hands shook as she opened it and she wasn’t seeing what was in front of her.   
For a while, they were silent, but then Hank told her: “Lee, I know this is hard, but - “  
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She bit down on her lip so hard that she tasted blood. “I’ll be fine.”  
“No, Lee, you won’t. Not until you face - “  
“I’m not in the mood for a twelve steps lecture”, she said, feeling her anger flare up again. “I’ve just been busy. I would’ve gotten around to it eventually.”  
He waited a few seconds before asking: “Do you even have a name yet?”  
“Sure. Two of them. One if it’s a boy, the other if it’s a girl.” That, too, was a lie, but this was a lot harder to check.   
“Which names?”  
“I’m not telling you.” She began to pile the contents of the box onto the table.   
“I don’t believe you”, Hank said, and though she wanted nothing more than to rail at him, she said: “I think I can live with that.” Her hands found the frames she’d been looking at yesterday. She put them face down. She did not need to see them again. She felt Hank’s presence hover behind her, but he said nothing, and after a minute or so he left. Soon, she heard him swearing and banging the pieces of furniture once again. 

After he’d left that evening, she went into the room, standing in the doorway, almost afraid to come in, staring at the crib, the changing table, the little bath in the corner. He’d gone all out; he’d even gotten her sheets for the crib and covers for the changing mat. A bouncy seat stood, a little forlornly, in the corner, a string of brightly coloured plastic beads spanning its width. Above the cradle there was a mobile of grey, white and yellow clouds, moons and stars. It made her implausibly angry, but she forced herself to stand on the threshold of the room, in the dark, to gaze at the furniture.   
She hadn’t bought any because she’d been sticking her head into the sand and, though she knew it was stupid and pointless, seeing the room as it was terrified her. Once again, her life was about to be upended. It would plunge her into chaos, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. The only difference was that this time, she saw it coming. She wasn’t sure that was an improvement. Angrily, she slammed the door shut. She would’ve locked it if it had had a lock. She probably would’ve thrown away the key, too.   
At the heart of the problem, she contemplated as she lay in bed, trying to relax, was Ethan. He was out of her life now, for the next ten years - and that was if he’d manage to survive prison at all, which wasn’t a given, she knew, not with his history, his tattoos. Ten years was a long time. She had no idea how determined he’d be once he’d get out, but she was betting his resentment wouldn’t exactly have vanished. This would have been bad enough under normal circumstances, but the baby gave him leverage and Lena had no idea how likely someone who’d been in prison for ten years was to get visitation rights, or even partial custody. And even if they didn’t give him any of that, he’d still try. Knowing him he’d succeed, and God only knew what would happen if she left a child alone with him.   
She knew what made him tick. Part of him wanted her back, because he loved her, or he thought he did. Part of him wanted to hurt her, because she screwed him over. She couldn’t really fault him for that; she had screwed him over. She’d planted evidence on him when what she should have done was march into Jeffrey’s office, point at her bruises - any of them - and tell him Ethan had done that, and it would have been honest. Now, his conviction was built on lies. Ethan knew, she knew, Jeffrey had to know, too, which made it all the more humiliating and conspiratorial. He hadn’t really protested, either; the way Jeffrey told her, he’d only looked mildly surprised when the gun had been pulled from his bag, and then he’d said nothing as Jeffrey’d put him in the back of his car, drove him to the station, to the courthouse. It had been a brief affair; it was his third strike, nobody was interested in what he’d have to say for himself. He’d known it; he’d refused to make a statement. She hadn’t been there. As per usual, she’d chickened out.   
But the part of him that didn’t love her, that wanted to control her, she knew, resented her for one-upping him, for getting out. They were supposed to be together until he’d decided he’d had enough of her, at which point she’d still be his property. She had no doubt he would’ve killed her eventually, even if he didn’t know it himself. She’d done everything she could to drive him away, but nothing worked. Catharsis had made him clingy or dominant, yelling and railing at him and hitting him had made him aggressive. She’d considered infidelity but all that would’ve done was get someone else killed. And now there was the baby, who would be nine and a half by the time his father was eligible for release. Plenty of time to have its mind warped by Ethan’s poisonous tongue.   
In her mind, the baby was a boy. She wasn’t sure where the conviction came from - she’d read plenty of times that most women, by the end of their pregnancy, had a pretty clear idea about the sex of their baby, but it might be simply pessimism. Ethan was so dominant that of course, any child of his would be a miniature version of him. She’d be stuck with another Ethan, a temperamental, perpetually angry child who would drain the life out of her. They’d both be miserable. Heck, maybe she’d be relieved by the time Ethan would inevitably step in.   
She rolled over onto her side and stubbornly crossed her arms over her chest as the baby began its nightly routine.


	8. Chapter 8

When Lena got out the door that morning she found Agent Colvin in her driveway, sitting on the hood of her rental car with a set of cardboard cups from the local grease coffee joint and a paper bag that probably contained pastry.   
“I have a theory”, she said when Lena opened her front door.   
“What the hell - “  
“Sorry for the inadvertent stalking. I’ll explain later. I thought we could see our Jane Doe, talk to some doctors, that kind of thing.” She jumped down from the hood gracefully, and Lena regarded her with some envy. She’d never been particularly graceful but the bulge was making her feel like an elephant. “Wanna come?”  
“I have a doctor’s appointment”, Lena said, though she felt torn. Part of her wanted nothing to do with Agent Colvin, but part of her was curious, too, and, frankly, she wanted to know why her damn bag had been on the scene.   
“No probs. Closest hospital is, what, Augusta? I’ll come with.”  
“That’s not happening”, Lena said, trying to move past her in order to get to her own car, but Agent Colvin rolled her eyes and said: “I’m not going to hold your hand. I’ll stay in the waiting room and we’ll pretend it never happened.” She reached out her arm, dangling the bag underneath Lena’s nose. “Peace offering?”  
“For what?”, Lena said, making sure the irritation in her voice shone through. The woman might outrank her, but she’d be damned if she’d let her walk all over Lena’s personal life.   
“You don’t like me very much.”  
“I don’t think a donut is going to fix that.”  
The woman looked at the bag and said: “They’re danishes, actually. I thought donuts would be a little too cliché. I did get you coffee.”  
“No thanks.” She patted her pockets, but her keys weren’t there, and for a brief moment she thought Agent Colvin had stolen them.   
“Come on”, the woman said. “I can sit here on my ass and wait for you while you drive to the hospital and back, wasting perfectly good mileage, and then we’ll both have wasted a lot of time.” She put the bag down again. “Also, there’s something we need to talk about and I’d rather do it in private.”  
“What is it?”  
“You’re not going to like it.”

Eventually, she gave in because she was running late, and Pendergast was nothing if not timely. Admittedly, she was curious too, and not entirely in a good way.  
“Here’s the thing”, Agent Colvin began as they drove down the I-95 to Augusta. “There’s no reason I can think of for your bag to be out there except coincidence, and law enforcement doesn’t like coincidence.”  
Lena shrugged, cradling the cup of coffee, now lukewarm, for comfort. The danishes were giving the car a yeasty, sweet smell and she felt her resolve not to touch them slip away bit by bit. “Coincidence suits me just fine.”  
“Right, but we can’t go on that. There’s nothing on that road except tire tracks, your bag, and a rape victim.”  
“So?”  
“So my problem”, Agent Colvin said patiently, “is that she looks a bit too much like you for comfort.”  
“No, she doesn’t”, Lena said, but as she said it, she realised that while it wasn’t completely true, it wasn’t entirely false either.   
“Granted, she’s not a carbon copy, but she has your body type, heighth, colouring, same hair length, same eye colour.”  
Again, Lena shrugged, but there was a nagging feeling inside of her, one that did not like the direction this conversation was going in at all. Still, she pointed out: “and that’s hardly a major coincidence. There’s plenty of petite brown-eyed brunettes in this area.”  
“Alright, so it’s a small coincidence. Two cases of coincidence.”  
“Again, do you know how many dark-haired women there are in this area? Quite a few.”  
“I know, but there’s something else.” She paused for a second. Lena was liking this conversation less and less. “Thing is, she has certain injuries that match yours, from when you were… attacked.”  
“Like what?”, Lena snapped back, though what she really wanted was to bolt from the car and run.  
“Well”, Agent Colvin said carefully, “She’s missing a few teeth, for starters.”  
“That’s not uncommon in rape victims.”  
“No, but it’s not that common either. And there’s more. She has a stab wound in her side. Not very deep, but…”  
“I didn’t have that.”  
“No”, Agent Colvin agreed. “But there are five holy wounds and you had four of them. She has the fifth.”  
Lena swore loudly. Agent Colvin seemed unimpressed.   
“Again, it might be a coincidence. It’s just that a lot of coincidences put together like that seem a lot less coincidental.”  
“You’re thinking about a copycat.”  
“I don’t think it is”, Agent Colvin said. “Those are incredibly rare. It’s just something to bear in mind, that it might not be a coincidence.”  
“Then what? What is this supposed to - “ Lena felt so angry she could barely speak. “Is this a joke to you?”  
“I’m dead serious.”  
“It’s idiotic.”  
“Yes”, Agent Colvin agreed. “It’s increasingly unlikely, but I can’t really run the risk of ignoring it, and frankly, neither can you.”  
“So you’re getting me out of town.”  
“Well, I really do need to talk to the girl and you seem eager to be kept in the loop, so I’d say it’s more of a happy coincidence.”  
Angrily, Lena crossed her arms over her chest, but then the back pain she’d been having all morning flared up again. “Fine. Then get me to Atlanta.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you”, Agent Colvin said as they were sitting awkwardly beside each other in the waiting room, Lena still fuming. “I just - “  
“Oh, shut up”, Lena snapped. She should have brought her own damn car, she realised. She could have driven herself to Atlanta just fine.   
“I just thought I’d point it out to you”, the woman said patiently. “Would you really have felt better if I hadn’t said anything?”  
“I’m not interested in your hare-brained theories.”  
“I’m not asking you to like it, but somehow, willingly or unwillingly, you’re involved in this and I need to know - “  
She was interrupted by a nurse calling out Lena’s name, and Lena got to her feet as quickly as her body would allow her. She said nothing as she left the waiting room and followed the nurse into a cubicle.   
Antenatal checks were executed with the speed and precision of an assembly line; it had surprised her a great deal when she’d first come here. One nurse would put her in a cubicle, tell her to put on a gown, and then she’d wait - sometimes only a few minutes, sometimes close to half an hour - for a second nurse to show up, who’d take her vital signs. Then she’d wait some more, and eventually doctor Prendergast would show up, feel around her stomach for a bit before snidely commenting on her blood pressure - too high - or her weight gain - too low - and telling her to really, really take it easy this time. Lena had learned to lie her way through it; the doctor wasn’t always entirely realistic in her expectations and had, more than once, suggested Lena let her husband do the vacuuming.   
“I don’t have a husband”, Lena had told her every single time, but Pendergast hadn’t really cared and had suggested getting a housekeeper instead. Lena had asked her if she could bill the doctor’s office, as a joke, but the woman had been dead serious when she’d replied that no, of course she couldn’t, but she might check with her insurance.  
She changed out of her clothes with angry, abrupt movements, kicked the stupid boots into a corner and put on the gown, which, with any luck and the help of a few branches, would make a great tent for a family of six. She kept her underwear on despite clear instructions to take it off and sat on the table, still upset, picking nervously at the scar on her left hand, bobbing her foot up and down and squirming uncomfortably. Her back hurt, probably from being so tense. She hadn’t slept much last night, and it was putting her in an irritable, jittery mood. Her belly felt rock-hard again, and she felt another lecture coming. She sighed. She’d never hear the end of it if she didn’t manage to relax before Pendergast came to see her.   
Nevertheless, sitting in the cubicle worrying about her blood pressure, she felt herself calm down slightly. Agent Colvin’s theory was preposterous, she thought. The woman was probably just bored and frustrated that the case wasn’t going anywhere, and just looking for a way to pass the time, looking for prime gossip on a salacious case. Lena knew where this was going.   
She’d never officially given a statement about what had happened to her all those years ago. Officially, sure, she should have - but it wasn’t as if nobody knew what had happened to her, and he had been dead. They’d fished him out of the water hours after they’d found her. By then she’d still been in hospital, puking her guts out from whatever Sara Linton had shot into her system, teeth chattering from fever and shaking because the pain in her hands and feet had been so bad that she saw stars, and everyone had just felt so damn sorry for her back then that they hadn’t asked. Not that she could’ve told them anything anyway; the drugs had paralysed her vocal chords and she’d been terrified she would never be able to speak again.   
Later, at the hospital, while they were waiting for the last traces of the drugs to wear off, Jeffrey had tried to get her to tell him what had happened, but she had been so worn out that she’d silently stared at the wall until he’d gone away, and then the doctors had come and sedated her. By the time she’d woken up she’d pretended nothing had happened and nobody had really challenged her, except maybe Hank, and Hank and his AA addiction wanted to focus on the future and not the past.  
She supposed, so many years down the road, that it should be easier. Days went by now where she didn’t think about what had happened to her, and when she did, it didn’t come back to her in a hot wave of fear, anger and shame, but more like an unpleasant memory. Yet actually admitting what had happened wasn’t something she was prepared to do.   
Agent Colvin could go fuck herself for all Lena was concerned.   
A nurse came into the cubicle with a chipper “good morning”, and Lena suppressed a groan when she saw the yellow plastic basket she knew they used for collecting blood samples.   
“How are you this morning?”, the nurse inquired and Lena gave a noncommittal “Fine”, watching impassively as the nurse began to unpack her utensils. Thermometer. Blood pressure cuff. Pulse-ox meter. She knew them all by heart now. She’d been in hospital often enough, but being pregnant was what truly acquainted her with what it was like to be ill. During her sparse forays into birth-related internet searches she’d come across women who refused any kind of medical intervention, ostensibly for some sort of esoteric reason that she found it hard to muster patience for, but she understood the urge to pull back from the process all too well.   
“It’s a little high”, the nurse said after checking her blood pressure. “Do you remember what it was last time?”  
“The same”, Lena said, making her voice sound almost bored. “Hasn’t really changed.”  
“Well, that’s good at least.” She put the cuff away and began to rummage around the plastic basket. “We’ll keep a close eye on you. Arm, please?”  
Lena obliged and looked the other way as the nurse applied a tourniquet and stuck a needle in her arm. She was never going to get used to the feeling.  
Usually Doctor Pendergast would make her wait, but this time she was on hand before the nurse had even finished taking the sample. She rummaged through Lena’s chart and opened with: “Your blood pressure is still a little high. How’ve you been f - “  
“Fine”, Lena droned. “No headaches, no tight feeling in my chest, and I don’t see stars.” She winced as the nurse pulled back the needle and placed a piece of gauze in the crook of her elbow.   
“That’s good”, the doctor said. “Still, I’d be more comfortable if we could - “  
“I’m fine”, Lena stressed. She’d been saying this so much that she ought to have it tattooed onto her forehead to save time.   
“I’ll be the judge of that”, Doctor Pendergast said coolly. “Lay down, please.”   
Her hands felt cold and hard against Lena’s stomach, and she tried not to wince as they prodded a little too thoroughly for comfort.   
“Any more Braxton-Hicks contractions?”  
“A few. Not that many”, Lena lied.   
“Define ‘not that many.’΅  
“Once a day. Maybe less.”  
“Hm”, the doctor said, and Lena knew she wasn’t believing a word of it. “You’re having them right now.”  
“Really?” She tried to shrug it off. “I can’t feel a thing.” She felt a pang of relief when the woman pulled back her hands, but then she said: “Alright, we’re going to put you on a monitor just to make sure.”  
“I can’t”, Lena said hastily, sitting up. Doctor Pendergast pulled up an eyebrow in scepticism and asked: “really? What are you doing that’s more important than your health and that of your child?”  
“I have a dentist’s appointment”, Lena lied. “My gums are bleeding like crazy.” Though her heart was racing, she met the doctor’s scrutinising glance with what she hoped seemed like casual boredom. “You told me to take care of my teeth, so I am.” Gingivitis could cause premature labour, she knew.   
“Can I see your appointment card?”, the doctor asked as she put the doppler on Lena’s stomach, and Lena tried not to squirm when the cold jelly hit her skin. Soon, the room was filled with the rapid woosh-woosh-woosh of the baby’s heart beat. She ignored it.   
“I don’t have it with me. And frankly, it’s none of your damn business.” She strained to keep her voice level, but she’d be damned if she let herself be treated like a toddler. She had better things to do.   
“Which dentist?” Doctor Pendergast put the dopper down, and Lena wondered if she’d even listened.   
“I’d like to change, please”, she snapped. The doctor gave her the evil eye for a few seconds longer, then left without saying anything, and Lena shook her head as she changed back into her regular clothes.   
Doctor Pendergast’s online reviews hadn’t been that great. Poor bedside manner, people had said. Indifferent, competent but seemingly uncaring. It was why Lena had picked her. The last thing she’d wanted was encouragement, positive reinforcement, hugging and back pats. In that sense, she’d gotten what she’d wanted, but that was as much as she was willing to credit the doctor with. From the get go, she’d been hectoring Lena to eat better, work less, take mothering classes, do prenatal yoga, and every time she stepped inside the office there was something else she turned out to be doing wrong. Doctor Pendergast seemed to have come to the conclusion that Lena would be an unfit mother very long ago.   
The worst part was that Lena couldn’t blame her for it, either.   
She was waiting by the desk when Lena emerged from the cubicle, studiously bent over a thick folder.   
“You haven’t handed in your birthing plan yet”, she said without looking up. “You were supposed to hand it in two weeks ago.”  
“I don’t need a plan”, Lena said, though suddenly, she was hesitant to leave. She felt herself bobbing up and down nervously, and she wondered where these jitters had come from. Behind the doctor she could see Agent Colvin sitting in the waiting room, calmly leafing through a magazine, and then she remembered why she was nervous.   
“I have the baby, I go home. That’s the plan”, Lena told the doctor, but the woman pulled out a form from a plastic tray and uncapped the plastic pen she’d been holding. “Let’s take care of it right now. Who’s coming in with you?”  
“A friend.”  
“And the father?”  
“Not in the picture”, Lena reminded the woman once again.   
“What if she shows up? Should we - “  
“He’s not going to.” She’d be damned if she was going to announce her problems in front of everyone. “Trust me.”   
Behind her a phone rang, and she heard Agent Colvin’s voice as she answered it. She pulled the form from doctor Pendergast’s hands and said: “I’ll hand it in next time I come in.” She backed away and turned before the doctor came up with anything else.   
“Miss Adams, you really need to - “, she began, but Lena ignored her as she headed back into the waiting room. Agent Colvin, still on the phone, said: “Great. No, we have our own team come over. I’ll notify them. We should all be there within the hour. Thanks.” She hung up and slung her bag over her shoulder. “You have good timing.”  
“What happened?”  
“Not much.” She walked down the hallway and Lena struggled to keep up. “They gave us the green light to have forensics examine her.”   
“Has she woken up yet?”  
“Nope. They’re keeping her sedated anyway so that might be a while. They’re just happy she’s alive at all right now. They wouldn’t let us get near her before today.”  
“And now?”  
“I’ve called in the regional FBI medical examiner. He’ll have to see how much, if anything, can be collected. I imagine they haven’t washed her yet, but God knows how much evidence they’ve already wiped off. Not much on the sheet she was wrapped in, by the way. A few hairs and some blood and saliva, but they’re the same blood type as hers so... “ She gestured at nothing in particular. “How was your checkup?”  
“Fine”, Lena lied. Her back still hurt and her stomach was harder than it had ever been, but it could wait. At the back of her mind the nagging thought lingered that she should have stayed and obeyed her doctor, but she pushed it away. They were just being cautious. It would be fine.   
Agent Colvin gave her a look that told Lena she didn’t believe a word of it, and she repressed the tendency to explain herself with some difficulty. Rule one of lying: know when to stop talking. Rule two: change the subject. “She’s at County, right?”  
“Yes”, Agent Colvin said as they got to the car. “She’s in ICU. No luck in the forest, by the way. Tire tracks yielded nothing. In fact, the area is suspiciously devoid of debris, like somebody wiped it clean. You’d expect at least a few empty coke bottles or condom wrappers or something.” She got into the car; Lena followed suit, wincing as her back twinged and spasmed. She struggled to get comfortable for a few seconds, aware that Agent Colvin was watching her.   
“Back pain?”, she asked sympathetically, and Lena responded with a curt “Yes”, hoping the woman would drop it. To her credit, she did. “If traffic’s not too bad we should make it in in about an hour and a half.”  
“You said an hour on the phone”, Lena pointed out, and the woman shrugged. “I know what hospitals are like. If I’d have said an hour they’re going to make me wait.”  
“You don’t think they have anything better to do than wait for us?”  
“Do you know what the patient-staff ratio is in the intensive care unit?”, she countered. “You want to fill in your birth plan while we drive? There’s a bunch of pens in the dashboard compartment if you need them.”   
Lena looked down and realised she was still holding the form. “No thanks”, she said, and she opened her purse so she could stuff in the papers. Her eye caught a glimpse of the text. Pain relief. 1. I would like pain relief during delivery. 2. I would like pain relief during delivery, but only if I ask for it. 3. I would like to give birth without the aid of pain relief. Well, it wasn’t going to be the third box in any case. She saw no point in suffering. She wondered why women were doing that to themselves. Surely nobody asked their dentist to pull teeth without novocaine because it was somehow more pure?  
“I’d tick the box with ‘epidural’ if I were you”, Agent Colvin said. “Or they’ll just try to talk you out of it. You can always say no.”  
Lena crammed the form into her purse.   
“Although it’s not as bad as it’s made out to be”, the other woman continued as she backed out of her parking space. “I had an epidural with my first two. Third time it went so fast there wasn’t any time, and from thereon I kind of just winged it.”  
“How many children do you have?”, Lena asked in spite of herself. Agent Colvin chuckled and said: “Seven.”  
“Seven?!”   
“I know. I really like The Sound of Music.” She paused and laughed when she saw Lena’s face. “I’m kidding. It just sort of… happened.”   
“How do you accidentally have seven kids?!”  
She shrugged. Lena wondered whether she was insane. “We had an accident when I was in my final year of college. I never wanted kids until then. Turns out I like them better when they’re mine.” She smiled to herself. “That was Freya. By then we’d gotten married and we’d set up a home and we liked it, so we figured we’d get another kid, and then another one, and, well, no reason to stop until it feels right, I suppose.” She paused. “Actually, number eight is on the way.”  
“You’re pregnant?”  
She shrugged, then suddenly floored the pedal and the car accelerated so rapidly that Lena felt herself being pressed against the seat, and she felt a powerful cramp pass through her abdomen into her back. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but it was strong and disconcerting.   
“Yep”, Agent Colvin said airily. “I was in a meeting last week checking my calendar and I saw that I’d missed my period, so I excused myself and locked myself in the bathroom with a test.” She chuckled. “Honestly, I just carry one with me wherever I go these days to save time.”   
“Fucking hell”, Lena said. “Eight kids. Eight.”  
“It’s not as bad as it sounds”, Agent Colvin assured her. “They’ve mostly been easy babies, though I guess by the time the third one rolls around they’ve got no choice, they just go with the flow.”   
Eight children. Lena could only imagine what that must be like.   
“Still”, she said. “I can’t even - “  
“Of course you can’t. I didn’t set out to have that many kids. I didn’t have all of them at the same time. Freya’s going to be eleven in March and Finn is six months, so…” She sighed. “To be fair, it helps that my husband works from home. Also, to be honest, that his family’s moneyed, and his parents like me.” She merged onto the freeway, casually honking at a swerving truck driver before overtaking it with a manoeuvre that Lena was pretty sure was illegal. “He manages his family’s trust fund. We get to live on his parents’ estate. I’m not going to deny that that makes it easier. I like my kids but I like my job, too.” She chuckled. “I’m usually back to work within a month or two.”  
From the way she said it, Lena gathered she thought two months was a very short period of time, but it seemed like forever to Lena. Two months of being stuck in a house with a screaming, squealing infant. Part of her realised she couldn’t very well drop a newborn off at daycare, but mostly, she just wanted her life back. Not that her life was all that much fun now, but babies were uncharted territory. She knew nothing about them. From what little she knew they seemed daunting, demanding. They couldn’t be reasoned with or scared into compliance. She could’ve prepared for this, of course; read a book or taken a parenting class, but it was a little late for that now.  
As if on cue, her back began to hurt and she tried not to squirm again.


	9. Chapter 9

She felt inexplicably nervous when they got to the hospital. She wondered why. She’d talked to rape victims before; in fact, she’d usually been the go-to person on the squad. That hadn’t really changed after she’d been attacked; not on the surface, at least. She understood them a lot better, though, even if she kept her distance. Now, everything felt personal. She felt uneasy as she trailed behind Agent Colvin in the dingy hallways of Cook County Hospital, and she hated herself for it.   
“Medical examiner’s meeting us in half an hour”, Agent Colvin told her, checking her phone. “He’s stuck in traffic, apparently.” They reached the elevator and she punched the call button. “Jane Doe’s medical team is on standby. They’re somewhat reluctant because she’s still not out of the woods, so if anything goes wrong we’re out of there immediately.”  
“I can live with that”, Lena said, if only because she didn’t want to watch the girl die.   
They were silent as the lift whirred up with an almighty groan, and Lena said a silent prayer that the ancient contraption wouldn’t give out. She squirmed uncomfortably as her back began to hurt once more. Perhaps the ride over hadn’t been a great idea. From the corner of her eye she saw Agent Colvin give her a look, but she said nothing and neither did Lena. It was back pain, it’d pass. She had had enough of people fussing over her.   
The girl’s doctor was waiting for them at the ICU main station, and as they approached she could tell from his face that he was not happy to have them here. He was a tall, broad-shouldered black man with a stern look on his face that Lena found far from reassuring. His rigid posture made her wonder if he’d been military once.   
“Doctor Dos Santos”, Agent Colvin said as they walked up. “Nice to meet you. I’d - “  
He ignored her outstretched hand and eyed them with evident distrust. “I would like to reiterate I am not happy about this.”  
“I understand”, Agent Colvin said. “I’m - “  
He pointed a finger at her face. Lena would’ve slapped it away.  
“Any sign she’s deteriorating and you’re out of there.”  
“I understand”, Agent Colvin repeated, as if a bulky, six-three tall man wasn’t shouting in her face. “All we want to do is find out who she is, so we can get her back to her family”  
“You can’t do that if she’s dead”, the doctor said, and Lena forced herself not to point out that, technically, they could.   
The doctor grunted something and turned, which they took as a reluctant “come with me”, and as Lena followed him she felt a rush of excitement, in spite of everything. She could do this. This was who she was.   
And yet, when she saw the girl, it sent a cold shiver through her and unwelcome memories flooded back into her mind. She’d never been this ill, sure, but all the same - she’d been there.   
They’d put the girl in a room at the end of the ICU corridor; she presumed the room was usually used for procedures. It was large, with a counter lining one side of the room and plenty of space for the staff to work around the bed. The sort of light fixture an operation room would have was suspended over the girl’s head. Machines whirred and beeped softy, and the sound was so eerily reminiscent that it took Lena a few seconds before she dared to look at her face.   
“Poor thing”, Agent Colvin said. “She looks younger than she did in the pictures.”  
That wasn’t true, Lena thought. She looked different, but not necessarily any better. Her face was pale and swollen and largely obscured by various wires, tubes and bits of tape. A brace over her mouth held a breathing tube in place; a wire had been attached to her forehead, and her eyes were taped shut. A thin feeding tube slithered into the her nose, and just above her clavicle was a thick bundle coming out of her neck that Lena recognised as a central venous catheter. Though the girl had been covered with a sheet she appeared to be nude, and Lena felt an intense pang of sympathy at the thought of what was about to happen to the girl. Streaks of mud were still on her skin, crisscrossing with swabs of bright pink antiseptic solution; a deep cut on her forearm had been stitched up with grim efficiency, the thick black wires jutting out of the skin like an alien lifeform was trying to burrow its way out. She looked grotesque, and part of Lena wanted nothing more than to rip away all wires and tubes and help the girl into the shower.   
Not that that would be happening any time soon; she was obviously close to death.   
“Detective Adams?”  
She startled; both Agent Colvin and the doctor were looking at her with something that might have been concern.   
“Sorry”, she said. “I was - “  
“I asked if you wanted a chair”, the doctor interrupted her, and just to spite both of them she said no. He shrugged. Her back cramped again, and she tried not to let it show on her face. Her feet were killing her and she was still wearing those stupid boots.   
This was going well already.   
Doctor Dos Santos sent an impatient look at the clock, and Agent Colvin offered: “My apologies. Tex sent me a message he’s on his way, but he’s stuck in traffic. Long live Atlanta’s…”  
“If he’s not here in ten minutes you’re waiting outside”, Doctor Dos Santos said.   
“Of course”, Agent Colvin said placidly, then turned to Lena. “Tex DeWitt is our forensics guy. One of them, anyway, but he’s pretty fast. He usually doesn’t do the living, but he’s quick and he’s thorough. Seemed more important.”  
“Fine”, Lena said, as if she had a say in things. In many ways she would’ve preferred Agent Colvin to be just a little less friendly.   
“Tex is not the most subtle guy”, Agent Colvin added. “Just so you know.”  
“I’ve dealt with assholes before”, Lena said, and Agent Colvin laughed. “He’s not an asshole. It’s just… He’s never had a thought that he didn’t voice and I’m pretty sure he has ADHD.”  
As if on cue, an implausibly tall, skinny guy tripped into the room, carrying two heavy-looking bags slung over both of his shoulders and one case in each hand, whirling them around carelessly. He had large, dark-rimmed glasses from behind which his eyes seemed to dart in all directions at once. His hair looked like he’d used a vacuum cleaner to comb it that morning. Weirdly, his suit and plaid shirt were impeccable.   
“Jesus Christ, this place if a fucking maze”, he said, and Lena liked him right up to the point where he saw her and asked: “Well you look ready to pop right here and now. Who the hell are you?”  
“Tex, this is Detective Lena Adams”, Agent Colvin said, her tone patient in a strained way, as if she were talking to a misbehaving child.   
“Oh right”, Tex said, dropping his heavy cases and flinging his bags down next to them, then tripping over them as he stepped forward to shake her hand. “Nice to meet you. Friend of mine used to date a lady named Lena Adams. Was that you? His name’s Nicholas. I thought she was a blonde. Actually, she might have been Lila Adams. Are there any other Lena Ad - “  
“If you two are done socialising”, Doctor Dos Santos said snidely, “I suggest we get this over with.”  
“This is Doctor Dos Santos”, Agent Colvin said, sounding even more strained. Tex eyed him and immediately began to blabber again. “Man, you sound like African-American Alan Rickman. I bet you score really well on interpersonal relationships during your performance reviews. Do you - “  
“Tex, we’re here with the Doctor’s approval, which he can withdraw at any time”, Agent Colvin said, now sounding almost exasperated. “I think it’s best if we got a move on. She hasn’t really had - “  
“She looks like she’s dead”, Tex opined. “What’s with all the smears? She looks like a… Who’s that painter with all those blobs and smears and shit?”  
“Jackson Pollock”, Agent Colvin said. “Tex, you - “  
“No, not Pollock. That was splatter.” He casually pulled a pair of gloves from a holder on the counter. “I’m in forensics, I know my splatter. Not suggesting you’d have done better wiping them off or anything, it just looks funky. Sort of post-apocalyptic rave, Mad Max-themed EDM party…”  
“Cram it, Tex”, Agent Colvin finally said, and Lena was relieved to see the ever so pleasant facade begin to slip.   
“Right”, Tex replied cheerfully. “I don’t know why I put these on. I haven’t even readied my cases.”  
“Oh, for the love of - “, Agent Colvin groaned, just as the doctor said: “you have half an hour. I’m looking at the clock.”  
“Sure thing.” He whistled as he dragged his cases over to the counter and began to pull out the exam kits that Lena was more than familiar with. He was quiet for exactly thirty-five seconds before he started up again, pointing at the blood pressure cuff that was mounted on the wall. “Is that a Sarlatti? I haven’t seen one of those since med school.” Then, suddenly, as if someone had flipped a switch: “alright, give me her vitals.”  
And just like that, they went to work. Lena watched from the sidelines as they scraped dirt from underneath the girl’s fingernails, combed her hair, swabbed the patches of mud that hadn’t been doused in antiseptics. She’d seen Sara Linton - and occasionally others - do dozens of exams like these before, and with the girl being unconscious and looking the way she did, Lena frequently had to remind herself that this wasn’t an autopsy. She looked on passively, quietly angry at the lump in her throat.  
Years ago, after her attack, she’d wanted nothing more than to get back in the saddle, so when Jeffrey had asked her if she was alright taking on a rape case she’d said yes before giving it a second thought. It hadn’t been until she’d been in the exam room that it had hit home, but the girl in question had been so hysterical that Lena’s attention had been forced elsewhere. Still, it pissed her off that it wasn’t like before, that it wasn’t, at the end of the say, something she could get over. Looking at the girl she was reminded all too well that the exam wasn’t the hardest by far.   
It was almost worth hoping the girl didn’t survive, she thought, and then felt guilty. It wasn’t her call to make.   
She tried to focus on Tex’s words as he cheerfully described lacerations and bruises, but then her back began to hurt again and she tried not to squirm. She should’ve gone for the chair after all. Fortunately the others seemed not to notice; they were bent over the girl’s arm, apparently engrossed in trying and failing to get a blood sample. Lena winced as she watched them repeatedly jab a needle into the girl’s pale skin and dig around to find a vein. The image flashed in front of her mind’s eye, and then she remembered her own stay in the hospital - not in Grant County, but in Augusta, where an infinitely patient nurse, his face now lost to her, had tried to give her a hepatitis-B vaccination and she’d gone into a full-blown panic attack. He’d tried to comfort her afterwards as she bawled like a fucking toddler, and she’d screamed at him to get out, embarrassed at her own histrionics. The memory had been seared into her brain. Even on good days it made her uncomfortable. On days like these it made her want to break down and cry all over again.  
“Got it”, she heard Tex say, and she saw the vial of blood filled up slowly. It seemed to take forever. Lena guessed the girl’s blood pressure was on the low side, though what that meant, and if that was good or bad, was beyond her.   
“Right”, Tex said. “Pelvic exam.” To her surprise, he took up the girl’s hand and said: “I’m going to assume you’re okay with this. I’ll be quick.”  
“She can’t hear you”, Doctor Dos Santos said. He was at the counter, labelling the vials. Tex shrugged.   
“Probably not”, Tex agreed. “But on the off-chance that she can…”  
Lena was touched, at least right up until the point where they bent the girl’s knees upward and spread her legs, and then she had to force herself not to look away, crossing her arms over her chest in a gesture that, she was sure, fooled no-one.   
The girl made it easy on her.   
A machine began to beep and suddenly, the girl began to thrash around violently. Dos Santos swore, pressed a button on the wall, and within seconds a crew of doctors and nurses invaded the room.   
“You need to leave”, one of them told Lena, and for once she didn’t put up a fight. Wordlessly she slipped out of the room and into the hallway, wondering if it made her a bad person that she felt infinitely grateful to be out of the room, away from the girl. Wondered, too, why the baby was being so unusually quiet today, whether it was sensing where they were, whether her back ache was innocent or something she ought to have checked up on. She added both of them to the ever-growing list of fuckups on her account as she paced up and down the hallway, trying not to literally wring her hands.   
After a minute or so, the door opened again and Tex and Agent Colvin appeared. Agent Colvin looked flustered; Tex looked more or less the same. He was still flapping his mouth.  
“What happened?”, Lena asked. Tex shrugged. “She threw a grand mal. Guess she wasn’t okay with the exam after all.” He pulled a lollipop from his pocket and patiently began to free it from its wrapper. Agent Colvin said: “Don’t be daft. Do you think she’ll be alright?”  
“Can’t be sure”, he said, his eyes still on the candy wrapper. “It can freeze, it can thaw, as my dad used to say. To be fair, he’s kind of an idiot and it doesn’t take a genius to hedge your bets, but - “  
“Thanks”, Agent Colvin interrupted him. “Stay on standby, please. If she - “  
“Oh, I don’t think Doctor No is going to let me anywhere near her for the foreseeable future”, Tex said, giving up on the lollipop and putting it back into his pocket. “Might be a few days until she stabilises and I’d be surprised if we got anything useful from her at that point.” He shrugged at his own words. “Can’t be helped. Sorry.”  
“All the same, I’d like to - “  
“They hosed her down anyway. I smelled bleach.”  
“Might have been hospital antiseptics”, Agent Colvin pointed out, but he shook his head. “Those have a different smell. We don’t use chlorine bleach in a hospital setting, not on patients. They cleaned her up first, then dumped her. With the injuries she has I doubt they had her wellbeing in mind when they washed her.” He rubbed his hands together excitedly. “Speculation! I love speculation. What else did they find with the body?”  
“She’s not dead yet, Tex”, Agent Colvin reminded him, and to irk her, Lena said: “a backpack.”  
“Anything in it?”  
“No.”  
“Detective Adams’s name”, Agent Colvin said, possibly by way of revenge. “And a piece of paper.”  
That was new.   
“Paper?”, she asked, just as Tex said: “what was on it?”  
“Nothing”, Agent Colvin said. “It was just an empty piece of paper, folded and scrunched up. It slipped in between the lining in the back, so they didn’t find it until this morning.”  
“Is it in my lab?”  
“No, I figured I’d give it to my kids to play with.”  
“I’ll have a look”, Tex said. “How come I didn’t know about the backpack yet? Why does it have your name on it? That’s fucking w - hey, is that why you’re here? Art, what kind of kooky theory are you brewing up?”  
Art? Lena wondered. She crossed her arms and said: “it looks like a backpack I used to have. I think I might have thrown it out. Not sure how it ended up there, probably some bum picked it up from the trash and used it for whatever.”  
“Still weird” , Tex opined. “Hey, this place where you found her - that was Grant County, right?”  
“Yes”, Agent Colvin said, her voice almost at a growl. Tex seemed unbothered. “I know that name. Couple a years ago they had this case there where this nutter went around crucifying a couple of women, not crucifying them on a cross or anything, but to the floors so he could - wait, that was you, right?”   
Before Lena could stop him, he yanked her hand up to look at the scar. In a reflex, she pulled back and punched him in the face.   
It shut him up, alright, for three entire seconds.  
“I probably deserved that”, he said after he’d gotten up. “Christ, you pack a punch. How’s your hand? I can get you an icepack if - “  
“Tex, if you don’t go away right now I can’t promise I won’t shoot you”, Agent Colvin said, and Lena didn’t know what else to do but turn her back to both of them and walk away. Her hand stung as she walked off, and her back hurt so much that she had to halt as soon as she was around the corner. Her phone began to ring, and she squirmed awkwardly as she tried to get it out of her purse and stretch her back at the same time.Her vision blurred a little, and she blinked furiously - was she crying? - until she could read the screen. Jeffrey. Her thumb hovered over the reject-button for a second before she accepted the call.   
“Hey”, Jeffrey said. “Any news on Jane Doe?”  
“No”, she said, and she hated the quiver in her voice. She swallowed hard, tossed a look over her shoulder, then walked down the hallway as fast as she could. “Colvin called in the medical examiner, but the girl’s pretty weak. He got about halfway done and then she started seizing, so they threw us out.”  
He was quiet for a second. “Are you alright? You sound kind of - “  
“No identifying marks, moles, scars, nothing. They’re working on dental ID but there’s damage to her teeth, so they’re not sure if they can get anything. She’s pretty poorly so they won’t let us examine her again. And that’s assuming she hasn’t died since I left the room.” She realised she was blabbering, so she shut her mouth.  
“Alright”, Jeffrey said. “I’d tell you to keep me posted, but it’s not really my case anymore.”  
To keep herself distracted she asked: “How’s the bombing thing going?”  
He sighed. “It’s a mess. It looks to be some sort of accident. Some kids toying with stuff they weren’t supposed to touch. The Feds got a couple of guys. They leaned on them pretty hard and they ratted each other out in no time. That’s all I know. They’ve taken over the office. They broke the coffee maker.” There was some commotion in the background, and she almost missed his hasty “gotta go.” Then she was alone again, pressing the phone against her ear for a long time, because if she put it down, she’d have to get back into the situation. Her stomach went rigid again, this time painfully so, and she exhaled tersely before sticking her nose in the air and marching back to where she’d come from. Agent Colvin was still in the hallway; Tex, thankfully, had vanished.   
“Sorry about that”, Agent Colvin said as Lena reappeared. “They stabilised her. She’s critical but still alive.” She was sitting on an uncomfortable looking bench at some distance to the girl’s room. Lena waved her phone at her before saying: “I had a phone call I had to take.”  
“Are you alright?”  
“I thought you weren’t going to ask me that.” She hoped she looked calmer than she felt. “What’s next?”  
Agent Colvin shook her head. She patted the seat next to her. “C’mon, sit down. It might be a while.”  
Lena eyed the bench with some distaste. “No, thanks.”  
Agent Colvin shrugged. “The guy who admitted her is starting his shift at three. I’d like to talk to him, if you want to come.”  
“Fine”, Lena said, leaning against the wall and crossing her arms. Her back pain flared up again and she tried not to wince.   
Agent Colvin was quiet for a few seconds before she said: “I’m really sorry about Tex.”  
“It’s fine”, Lena told her in a voice that made it clear she meant the opposite. “I can handle it.”  
“I bet you say that a lot.”   
“Excuse me?”, she said coolly, and Agent Colvin shrugged. “Never mind. You got him pretty good, though. His eye’s going to be swollen shut by the time he gets to the office.”  
“Is that supposed to make me happy?”  
“I don’t know. He had it coming and he knew it, so I wouldn’t feel too bad about it.”  
“I don’t”, Lena deadpanned, though it was a lie. It did make her feel bad, not because she’d bruised the guy’s face, but because he’d gotten to her. She wasn’t often lost for words but she hated when it did happen. Impulse control wasn’t her strongest suit to begin with, but generally she could deal with inquisitive behaviour. People in Grant County tried to sneak a look at her hands all the time - she loved cold weather if only for the fact that it allowed her to wear gloves - and she’d tuck her hands into her pockets and ignore them. Most of them were too polite to ask directly; aside from Jeffrey, Brad was the only one who’d ever asked her if they still hurt. To have them examined that brazenly, and without warning, was a step too far, especially now, on a day like this when she was feeling caught, out of her element, vulnerable even. She hated the feeling of being on the verge of crying, the exhausting balancing act that literally made her face hurt from the strain. Two days ago she’d have been glad at an excuse to get out of the house; now, she wanted nothing more than to go home, take a long shower and curl up on the sofa to finish her book, even if she wasn’t sure she liked it.  
Agent Colvin said: “I think he has a crush on you.”  
If she’s been eating, she would’ve spat out her food. The suggestion was so leftfield that she wasn’t sure what to say.  
“He’s not very good at communicating”, Agent Colvin said. “As you might have noticed. He’s a bit more… hyperverbose than usual, though.”  
“You’re insane”, Lena managed to say. Agent Colvin shrugged again. “I’m pretty sure he’s on the spectrum and anyway, you’re very pretty. It’s not that strange.”  
“I’m pregnant”, Lena said indignantly. “Like, really - “  
“That’s not necessarily a deterrent”, Agent Colvin said calmly. “Not that I think he’s got a fetish or anything. I think he just likes you. Or the idea of you, I suppose. He doesn’t really know you. ”  
“Oh, great.” She turned around to face the empty hallway ahead of her. Another creeper. Agent Colvin wasn’t far off the mark in the sense that men seemed to find the bulge underneath her shirt appealing - more than once she’d had to tell complete strangers, men and women, to get their hands off of her - but she didn’t need it pointed out in broad daylight.   
“I bet you get a lot of guys trying to save you”, Agent Colvin said. “Not in a Jesusy way, I mean, but - “  
“They all want to be a hero.” She crossed her arms, still not turning around.   
“Right.” Agent Colvin paused. “I bet that grows old pretty fast.”  
“Sure does.” Involuntarily, Lena thought about the men who’d been in her life. They had all wanted to be her saviour, even Greg, though to be fair, he’d been somewhat more subtle about it. Ethan, though - he’d been the exception. Ethan hadn’t tried to save her. Ethan wanted her broken down, pliable, limp and meek. It was painfully ironic that she’d never been this low and he couldn’t get to her anymore. He’d be furious and delighted in equal measures if he’d know.   
“Anyway”, Agent Colvin said, but then her phone began to vibrate, and she answered it with a curt “now what?”. Lena tried to pick up strands of the conversation, but the other woman said little more than “hm” and, finally, “alright, thanks. I’ll get right on it”, which might have been sarcastic. She resisted the temptation to butt in.   
“That was Tex”, Agent Colvin said, and finally, Lena turned around.  
“What’d he want?”  
“He forgot to mention something.”  
Figures, Lena thought. As if he hadn’t talked enough.   
“He noticed the girl has a lot of calluses on her feet in a certain pattern. He thought she might do ballet.”  
“From pointe shoes, right?”, Lena said.   
“Right”, Agent Colvin replied, and to Lena’s satisfaction she looked mildly surprised. “Tex says he’ll upload some pictures of her face when he gets to his office, so we can send them to ballet schools. Also, he took a look at her epiphyseal plates on the X-rays they took, and he’s pretty sure she’s not done growing yet. He thinks the original estimate that she’s between fifteen and twenty is on the high side. More fifteen than twenty, say.”  
So definitely a girl, then, not a woman. She asked: “He can get a more accurate estimate, right?”  
“Once he gets to the office, sure. Best guess now is fourteen to sixteen.”  
“She looks older.”  
“Because she’s ill”, Agent Colvin said, but Lena shook her head. “It’s not that, it’s… I don’t know. She just does.”  
Agent Colvin sighed. “I hope you’re right.”  
“I don’t think it gets any easier, regardless of how old she is”, Lena pointed out.   
“True”, Agent Colvin admitted, “but… Imagine this” - she gesticulated wildly - “is your first experience with sex. I mean, losing your virginity almost always sucks, from a technical point of view, but to have it be so violent... “  
Lena realised she was fishing, so she said: “You think you might be projecting just a little bit there?”, which made Agent Colvin laugh, briefly, before she answered. “Elizabeth Smart had the chance to escape years before she did, but never dared to because she wasn’t a virgin anymore. Her family had taught her women who had sex outside of marriage were tainted goods. She didn’t think they’d want her back.”  
“Not everybody in the South is a religious freak”, Lena snapped, and Agent Colvin laughed again. “I know. For the record, I don’t assume you’re all rednecks. It’s another thing to consider, though; the wound in her side, for one, and the fact that she hasn’t been reported missing might be because she lives in a closed community, like - you guessed it - a certain type of church.” She leaned back in her seat, crossed her arms over her chest. “Warren Jeffs married ‘em younger than this.”  
“Warren Jeffs wouldn’t let his wives do ballet or cut their hair.”  
“The haircut was recent”, Agent Colvin pointed out. “They might have done it to change her appearance. And Tex didn’t say she did ballet, just that she had a lot of calluses and corns and that it reminded him of - “  
“Warren Jeffs also didn’t operate in this area.”  
“True”, Agent Colvin admitted, “but his followers have been trying to set up new communities. Oddly, they feel unwelcome a lot of the time.”  
“I can’t imagine why that is”, Lena said, and Agent Colvin smiled. “You don’t strike me as a religious sort of person.”  
“I got kicked out of Sunday school when I was twelve for tearing pages out of a Bible”, she admitted, though she had no idea what prompted her to do so. “Guess I don’t care for people telling me what to do.”  
“You must love being pregnant, then”, Agent Colvin replied, looking at her phone to check the time. “We have an hour until the ER doc starts his shift. Let’s get lunch.”


	10. Chapter 10

Let’s get lunch. It was the way she’d phrased it, absent-mindedly, her body language relaxed and unselfconscious, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Normally Lena would’ve protested, told the woman she wasn’t hungry just so she could spend an hour on her own, but instead she found herself reluctantly dragging her tired body through the cold to a restaurant Agent Colvin insisted on. She also insisted on paying, even before they’d walked through the door; a good thing, too, because the place didn’t look like the sort of restaurant Lena could afford.   
“I can pay for my own damn food”, she’d told Agent Colvin and Agent Colvin had asked her: “sure you can, but why would you when Uncle Sam’s footing the bill?”, and she hadn’t known what to say in return. Moreover, she’d been tired and her back and her feet were so sore she was happy just to be able to sit down for a while. She wasn’t hungry in the slightest, her back still hurt, and she hadn’t managed to shake the jittery feeling she’d been feeling all day. Top top things off, the strong scent of unfamiliar spices which permeated the restaurant was making her stomach churn.  
“Sorry”, Agent Colvin said as she shuffled into her seat. “At the moment the only thing I can eat without throwing up is Indonesian food, somehow. Bear with me. You’ll like it, I promise.”  
Lena shrugged and said nothing. She didn’t care for the look Agent Colvin was giving her - as if she was being studied - so she said: “fine with me.”  
Truth be told, she wasn’t too keen on Asian food no matter where it came from. Lena ate because she had to, not because she enjoyed it so much. She hadn’t had much of an appetite in the past four years, but even before then, food had been something utilitarian to her. If she could have lived on air alone, she would have. Ethan had gotten her Chinese takeout sometimes until it had made him sick one time; Lena had been fine, but he’d barred her from getting it anyway.   
Agent Colvin said: “Normally I prefer Korean food, but I can’t handle spicy right now, so that’s out. If you’re not sure what to get - “  
“I’ll ask the waiter”, Lena snapped. She couldn’t make sense of the menu but she could order her own damn food, and she’d eat it, too, whether or not she liked it.   
Nevertheless, Agent Colvin said: “Suit yourself. I’m having the rendang.”  
As they waited for the food to arrive, Lena surreptitiously checked her phone. No messages. She checked Grant County’s news website, but even the amateur sleuths offered little more than “the investigation is ongoing.” She texted Jeffrey. Everything alright?   
As if she could have changed anything if it wasn’t. Her back pain flared up again and she tried not to squirm.   
“How’s your back?”, Agent Colvin asked, and Lena detected a hint of sarcasm in her voice, so she said: “I thought you weren’t going to ask me that.”  
“I said I wasn’t going to continually ask you if you were okay doing this or that”, she replied. “Are you sure you’re not in labour?”  
“It’s back pain”, Lena said. “I’ve had it for months.” Which was true, except it hadn’t been this bad before. On top of that, she felt her stomach grow hard with alarming frequency, and the baby was unusually calm. She really should see a doctor.   
“Back pain can be labour”, Agent Colvin said. “It’s harder to recognise than you think, especially if it’s your first.”  
“I’m not in labour”, Lena snapped. Agent Colvin shrugged again, and Lena added: “I’m only thirty-six weeks. I’m not - “  
“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. People give birth earlier than that.”  
“Well, not me”, she replied snidely, and though Agent Colvin didn’t look convinced, but just as she opened her mouth to reply, Lena’s phone rang. She frowned as she saw the number. It was set to private. Nevertheless, she picked up.  
“Detective Adams! Tell Art to take her phone of silent mode, will you? I’ve tried to get a hold of her about six times now. Wonder why she keeps the fucking thing around. She never picks up, though, it’s not just today. Maybe she’s afraid of the radiation or something.”  
Lena rolled her eyes and interrupted him before her ears began to bleed. “What is it?”  
“It’s Tex, by the way. We met earlier today. Have you given birth yet? How’s your hand? My eye’s pretty much welded shut by this point. It’s pretty cool. I’ve never had any battle wounds. You have a great left; did you do a lot of boxing before you got knocked up?”  
Across the table, Agent Colvin began to laugh.   
“What is it?”, Lena repeated through gritted teeth.   
“It’s the piece of paper.” He slowed down a little now that he was on familiar ground. “There’s a couple of things about it. First of all, it’s the wrong size.”   
“The wrong - “  
“It’s A4, not standard letter size.”  
Lena switched her phone to speaker. “What’s A4?”  
“It’s the name of the paper size. It’s about the same as standard letter, so you can’t really tell unless you measure it. It’s slightly bigger. I checked the edges for microscopic tearing and there wasn’t much of it, which means it was probably cut by a machine, not by hand, so she can’t have cut it down from a legal pad or anything.”  
“Right”, Agent Colvin said. “So where exactly do they use A4?”  
“That’s the downside. Pretty much everywhere except north and middle America. I can run her hair through a spectrograph or I can see if I can find anything in her bloodstream to tie her down more specifically, but that’s kind of a hail Mary. I did find something else, though.” She heard him rummage around. “There were tiny traces of rye bread in her bag. Rye is eaten pretty much all over the world, but it’s much more common in Russia, Germany, Eastern Europe. So for argument’s sake, let’s say she’s from Eastern Europe.”  
“You think it’s human trafficking gone wrong?”, Agent Colvin asked.   
“Possibly, but she looks rather well-kept for that and let’s be frank, if that’s the case then they’ve seriously fucked up the merchandise.”  
“Smooth, Tex”, Agent Colvin said. “Anything else?”  
“Well, I told you about the patches on her feet, right? I took some photos. She’s had an ingrown toenail repaired and her toenails have partially healed bruises on them. She also has a lot of epidermoid growth.”  
“You mean she has corns on her feet. You told me that already.”  
“Right, but the way the pattern is spread combined with the bruising on the nails just confirms that she’s been dancing on pointe shoes and she’s been doing so for a while. Now, I’ve checked with some people. Usually you don’t start training on pointe shoes until you’re fourteen or fifteen, because if you start too early it can cause bone deformities. Except our girl is fourteen, fifteen maybe, so that doesn’t work out. Then the lady I talked to mentioned that they start earlier in some places including - dramatic pause - Russia.”  
“You think she’s Russian”, Agent Colvin said, her face falling. “Christ almighty. That’s… Not what I wanted to hear.”  
“Why? Just stick the state department on it. Not your problem. And anyway, this is just guesswork. Some people have faster epidermoid growth, or maybe she just wore ill-fitting shoes. And some US and EU schools do start earlier with pointe shoes, which, by the way, did you know the professionals have them custom made? They go to up to three or four pairs per day. The average ballet company spends over a million dollars a year on pointe shoes alone. Manufacturers all have their own secret recipe, they’re still made entirely by hand, it’s a fascinating process. They put symbols on - “  
“Yeah, thanks, Tex. I’ll get on the phone with the state department.”  
“Sure, but I’d wait until I get spectrography in from the hair sample. I can call in a forensic anthropologist from Quantico - “  
“How long will it take you to do spectrography?”  
“A day, maybe? It usually doesn’t take that long but there’s a backlog and the machine’s been on the fritz a couple of times since - “  
“Let’s hold off until you get the results, then.”  
“Alright, suit yourself. West Virigina’s a long way though, it might take a day or two before - “  
“Tex, we’ve got to go. Food’s here”, Agent Colvin lied, and Lena obediently terminated the call just as Tex piped up with “Right, so where are you - “  
“I swear he has it in for you”, Agent Colvin said. “He’s not usually this exhausting.”  
“He told me to tell you to switch your phone on.”  
“My phone is on. He just wanted to talk to you.”  
“Where on earth did he get my number?”, Lena asked. Agent Colvin shrugged again. “Well, he works for the FBI.” She mimicked a German accent. “Ve haf vays of doing fings.”  
“All the same”, Lena said. If she’d abuse police resources to find the phone number of someone she liked she’d be fired.   
“If it bothers you I can - “  
“No thank you”, Lena cut her off.   
“Or you could just deck him again”, Agent Colvin suggested with a smile, and Lena would have told her off, but the food arrived just then.   
“Thank God”, Agent Colvin groaned, and to Lena’s relief, she finally stopped talking for a while as she ate. 

After lunch, as they were waiting for the server to bring over the check, Agent Colvin suddenly asked: “Your name’s actually Salena, right?”  
Lena shrugged again. “What of it?”  
“Did you always go by Lena?”  
“Pretty much”, she said. “Why?”  
“Just wondering. The name in that backpack was Lena, not Salena.”   
“Sorry to disappoint you”, Lena said. Her back pain flared up again and she struggled to keep a straight face. A sullen looking waitress dropped off a tiny wooden box with the receipt in it. “It’s always been Lena.”  
“Family name? I mean, you obviously have Latin-American roots.”  
That was one way of putting it.   
“I have Mexican grandparents”, she said. “I was named after my grandmother.”  
“That’s nice.” Agent Colvin tucked an official looking credit card into the box and gesturing a little too enthusiastically at the waitress. “I was named after a Greek goddess.”  
Art? Lena tried to put two and two together. Agent Colvin helpfully supplied the answer. “My parents were big art lovers. They named me after Artemisia Gentileschi, who, in turn, was named after Artemis, the Greek goddess of hunting.” She smiled. “Artemisia Gentileschi was a renaissance painter, one of the first women to become famous for producing art under her own name and not a male pseudonym. She was the first woman to be admitted into the Academia Dell’Arte. My parents thought she’d be a good role model. They forgot to tell me the whole story.” She got up; Lena followed suit, or tried to. Her back by now hurt so badly she could barely stand up straight, but Agent Colvin appeared not to notice. “Artemisia Gentileschi was raped by her mentor, a painter named Agostino Tassi. If it’d ever come out it would have ruined her reputation, so when he promised he would marry her she accepted his proposal. He reneged on his promises, though, and she pressed charges. This being the sixteenth century, they were disinclined to believe her.” She pulled their coats from the nearly empty cloakroom. “So they tortured her, put the thumbscrews on her as he got to watch. She screamed at him that this was the wedding ring he’d promised her, which, I think, was ballsy. Eventually, they half-heartedly believed her and sent him to prison for a while before banishing him. Nobody remembers his name, and her work is in the Uffizi Gallery. Maybe you’ve seen her painting of Judith beheading Holofernes?”  
“No, but it sounds lovely.”  
“It’s very graphic. She put her own face on Judith’s, and Tassi’s on the dying Holofernes and now it hangs in one of the biggest museums in Europe as a giant fuck-you to male entitlement. I’ve always liked that. My parents never told me that part, though. I figured it out myself.” She put on her coat. “Anyway, I was Missy throughout most of my childhood and when I joined the bureau, I became Art, because people tend to take you more seriously if they think you’re a guy. For all they know, until they talk to me in person, I’m Arthur.”  
Lena couldn’t fault her for that. Still, she thought - Artemis. That wasn’t going to happen.   
She thought about the story as they walked back to the hospital, unsure why it gave her such a knot in her stomach until she realised she hated it because it made her feel like a coward. She’d never had to stand up to her rapist in court; he’d simply left her and died at someone else’s hands. She’d never got the chance to hurt him like he’d hurt her, but if she was brutally, painfully honest with herself, she wondered if she would have been able to do it. All she did was run away from it. Ethan had been no different. Would she have had the courage to accuse anyone? Ten years ago she would have said yes. She would have railed at those women who protected their assailants, their power-hungry teachers, their abusive husbands. She would have insisted that, had it been her, she would have given a detailed statement to the police, she would not have backed down in court. She would not have been shamed. In reality, she knew she would have looked away. She had done it with him, because they let her, and she’d done it with Ethan, too, because he made her feel worthless, like a failure who couldn’t do anything, but also because she was afraid of people finding out. Jeffrey telling her he knew, they all knew, had almost hurt more than anything Ethan could have done to her because she knew it would be another downtick on the list he was keeping of her, and she was running out of credit. She knew, too, he wasn’t fooled by the way she’d fixed it; he was just happy she had let him take care of it. He liked being the hero as much as any other guy. But it also meant she’d have to keep him on her good side, and that made her even more dependent.   
“It’s nearly three”, Agent Colvin said as they entered the hospital, shaking Lena from her reverie. “We’re late.”  
They weren’t, not really, but still the man who was waiting for them at the desk with an irritable look on his face didn’t seem too pleased with them. As they approached she could also tell that he was implausibly good looking. He stuck out like a sore thumb in the tired and worn emergency room with its dirty beige floor and grubby walls that had at one point been white.   
“Doctor Blauvelt?”, Agent Colvin asked, and he nodded. They shook hands. His look went down to her belly just a fraction too long, and she pulled her hand free before he’d let go.   
“We were hoping to have a word with you about a patient of yours who came in yesterday”, Agent Colvin began. “Is there anywhere we can talk in private?”  
“In this place?” He laughed. “Lady, anywhere private has had beds stashed in it long ago.” He gestured at the dingy looking area around him. “This is an inner city emergency room, not a fancy-ass private clinic. This’ll have to do. My shift starts in four minutes.”  
Lena bristled at his tone, but Agent Colvin wasn’t thrown quite so easily.   
“We’ll keep it brief. You treated our Jane Doe as she came in. Can you talk us through which steps you took?”  
He shrugged and began to fumble with the clasp on his bag. “Nothing special. Just basic triage. She’d already been intubated, so there was no need to stabilise her airways. We took a blood gas sample and a regular blood sample, and we inserted a central venous catheter. We took frontal and lateral X-rays of her limbs and diagnosed her with a comminuted tib-fib fracture on the left and a transverse fracture of the femur, as well as an oblique non-displaced fracture of the left humerus, which leads me to believe she fell and landed on that side. She had significant subarachnoid bleeding and a displaced fracture of the left temporal bone. She was showing early signs of ischemia and she scored a three on the GCS. We inserted a urinary catheter to monitor kidney function and monitored her cardiac output, both of which weren’t great, but within margins. There were a few lacerations that we stitched up. We gave her fluids, sedatives and analgesics to combat pain and induce stasis, and then we carted her up to ICU. Took about forty minutes. If you’re looking for a forensic - “  
“We’ve already had a forensic expert examine her.”  
Doctor Blauvelt looked sceptical. “What, the ICU let you?”  
“I have my ways”, Agent Colvin said. “We’ll need a copy of your notes.”  
“They’re in her medical file, which I’m not sure you have access to.”  
She didn’t bother replying and sidestepped with a neat: “Was she awake when she arrived?”  
He snorted. “She was barely alive.” He pointedly glanced at the clock again. “You have two minutes left.”  
“Two and half, but point taken”, Lena said snidely. He sent her a withering look. She returned his gaze, or tried to - her back was hurting so much she had to focus on keeping a straight face. Most of the conversation had gone over her head; she’d heard it, but it hadn’t hit home. His stare was making her uncomfortable, though; he had strange green eyes in a colour she’d never seen before, almost like emeralds. It looked fake, yet she doubted he was wearing contacts.   
“Did you observe any other injuries?”, Agent Colvin asked, and he rolled his eyes. “Look, if you’re going to go out of your way to screw over HIPAA you could’ve at least read the damn file.”  
“I’d just like your general impression”, Agent Colvin said, though she was sounding less friendly than she had earlier that day. “Believe it or not, these things matter.”  
“My general impression”, doctor Blauvelt said, hoiking his bag up to his shoulder, “is that she’s probably going to die, and whoever she is, that might be the smartest thing for her to do.” It seemed like he wanted to take off, but he paused, briefly. “There were localised burn marks on her buttocks. Third and fourth degree, very localised. Someone branded her like cattle. That’s just the cherry on top of the cake. Not sure it matters who she is, really. She’s not going to come back from this.” And then he took off, casually calling something out in Spanish to a janitor who was mopping up a puddle of God only knew what, before disappearing into the bowels of the hospital.  
“Charming”, Agent Colvin said. “What an ass.” Lena thought: he’s not wrong, though. She said: “So did you get her medical file?”  
“Of course. Tex has a copy, too. As long as she’s unconscious and we haven’t identified her next of kin, we’re in charge”  
“That seems unethical.”  
“Oh, don’t start with me”, Agent Colvin said. She checked her phone for the time and said: “Alright, let’s go up to the ICU again, see if Dos Santos can tell us anything about those burn marks. You give Tex a ring, and I’ll - “  
“No way”, Lena said. Her ears were still bleeding. She half expected another teasing reply but Agent Colvin seemed to be done being talkative for the day.  
“Fine. You want to deal with Dos Santos instead?”  
“Fine by me”, Lena answered, even though she’d prefer not to deal with either of them. She’d rather not admit it, but she was feeling drained. The feeling wasn’t new to her, but this time it was the physical aspect of her day as well as the mental strain. If she’d been in Grant County she would have found a way to sneak off and head home. The image of her bed appeared before her mind’s eye, and she almost gave a wistful sigh at the thought of crawling in there and not getting out for a full day.   
Yet she was stuck in Atlanta now and she’d be damned if she was going to ask Agent Colvin to drive her back. Clearly she had not thought this through. There was little that could be done about it, though, except play along and hope Agent Colvin tired of her soon enough, that any suspicions about Lena’s involvement in the case would have disappeared and that somehow, she’d find a way to sit in a car for several hours while her back was still hurting.   
The wise thing to do, of course, would be to tell Agent Colvin she wasn’t feeling great, head to the maternity ward and ask, or beg, them to take a look at her. She knew it had to be done, just as she knew she wouldn’t be able to postpone having a baby forever, and that she’d never forgive herself if it turned out something was wrong and she could have fixed it. It was easier said than done.   
Fate had other plans for her.  
Just as Agent Colvin pressed the call button for the elevator, Lena felt a sharp pain all through her back and her stomach. It came on so suddenly and it hurt so badly that she dropped her purse in surprise; she felt her knees buckle, and had to lean against the wall to stop herself from falling down. Her breath caught in her throat. Then, she felt a tiny crack, almost like a rubber band snapping, and a warm liquid began to flow down her legs. It took them both a few seconds before they realised what had happened.   
“Oh”, Agent Colvin said, just as Lena whispered: “fuck.”


	11. Chapter 11

To her credit, the other woman forewent a triumphant “I told you so”, and instead took the lead.   
“Right. Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll go get someone.”  
Lena swallowed hard, trying not to panic, and stupidly, she heard herself say: “I’m fine. I just need a ride back home.”  
Agent Colvin laughed incredulously. “You can’t make a three hour drive back to - “ She caught herself. “Just sit down, I’ll get someone to take a look at you. It’ll be fine.” Lena nodded, though her heart sank.   
There was a bench in the hallway and she sat down on it, heart pounding in her throat.   
Today, of all days, in this place. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She was supposed to have at least three weeks left. Three weeks to wrap her head around the fact that another human being would now be fully dependent on her. She didn’t even have baby clothes yet. No clean clothes for herself, either. She was supposed to have packed a bag with all the necessities and put it in the hallway, but she hadn’t done that. Not that it would have helped her here.   
She felt another wave of pain come on and braced herself against the bench, squirming and grimacing. The pain was bad enough to take her breath away and she wondered just how much worse it was going to get. The sweet, cloying scent of the amniotic fluid hit her, her stomach clenched, and before she could stop herself she vomited up her lunch, doubling over and nearly falling off the bench in the process. The janitor, still mopping the floor down the hall, stoically made his way over to her, ignoring her as he threw sawdust from a rancid-looking bucket over the mess she’d made.   
“I’m sorry”, she told him, but he shrugged. He probably assumed she was a drunk.   
“Over here”, she heard Agent Colvin say, and Lena looked up. “Lena? You okay?”  
“I’m just fine, Art”, she snapped back. Agent Colvin didn’t appear to notice and told the nurse: “I think she’s been at it for a few hours.”  
“I can speak for myself”, Lena bit back. The nurse squatted down in front of her and Lena immediately got to her feet. Everything else be damned, but she wasn’t going to be talked down to by anyone.   
“I can walk”, she said. “I’m fine. I just need to - “  
“Maternity ward’s on the fourth floor”, Agent Colvin said.   
“She ain’t going up there”, the nurse said. “Not unless she’s a registered patient. She goes through triage first. Obstetrics’s backed up anyway.”  
“But - “  
“Thanks for your help”, the nurse barked at Agent Colvin. “Miss Adams, you come with me.” She pointed down the hallway. “Exam four is free. Just take your time.”  
She had little choice. As she slowly shuffled ahead, the nurse waiting by her side semi-patiently, Agent Colvin asked: “do you want me to come with you?”  
“No”, Lena said. Just then, another wave of pain rolled over her, and she closed her eyes and gritted her teeth to stop herself from shouting out. When she opened her eyes as it ebbed away, the nurse was looking at her watch. For a second, Lena thought it was a passive-aggressive way to tell her to move her ass, but then she realised the nurse was timing her pains.   
“About a minute. Come on”, she pressed. “Let’s get you out of the hallway, alright?”  
Agent Colvin asked: “Should I call any- “  
“Don’t bother”, Lena told her, just as she got to the door of the room. 

The nurse made her change into a gown - Lena’s hands were shaking so hard that she had to help - and sat her down on the bed to check her vital signs, and as Lena watched her work she wondered about Agent Colvin’s question. Should I call anyone for you?   
Doctor Pendergast had told her she needed to ask someone; someone to drive her to the hospital, to hold her hand, to ‘be an advocate’, as she put it, and after she’d pressed the issue for a few weeks Lena had caved in and asked Nan Thomas. She wouldn’t have known who else to ask and to Lena it had been a mere formality, but Nan had taken the challenge up with equal measures of trepidation and excitement. It hadn’t seemed like a big deal to Lena but Nan had been insanely flattered and, being a librarian, had read up on the birth process, something which Lena had resolutely avoided. “I’ve always wanted to see a baby being born”, she’d confided in Lena, and Lena had shrugged. She had seen a baby been born once, when she was still in uniform; a woman just off the interstate had given birth in her car, but the EMTs had been there and Lena had to do little more than make sure passers-by didn’t stop and get too close. There had been a lot of screaming and crying involved, first the woman’s, then the baby’s. Lena had been mostly embarrassed by the theatrics, the screams and groans, the euphoria, the smells. She’d been, what, twenty-ish?The woman had seemed thrilled and relieved, cradling her baby and cooing softly as they loaded her into the ambulance.   
Was that really going to be her in a few hours?  
“Your blood pressure’s a bit high”, the nurse said. “Who’s your OBGYN?”  
“Doctor Pendergast”, Lena said, hating how shaky and hoarse her voice sounded. “Over in Augusta.”  
“We’ll make sure to check in with her.” She picked up a clipboard. “So how far along are you?”  
“Thirty-six weeks.”   
“First baby?”  
“Yes.”  
“Have you been pregnant before?”  
“No.”   
“Is there a father I need to contact?” The nurse’s voice remained neutral, passive. Lena shook her head. “No.”  
“Anyone else you’d like me to call?”  
Again, she shook her head. Her throat clenched shut hard. The nurse glanced up from her clipboard and said: “You sure? Giving birth is hard, you shouldn’t do it alone.”  
“I’ll be fine.”  
The nurse sighed. “Well, if you change your mind, let us know.” She ticked a few other boxes on the clipboard, then tucked it into its holder on the bed. “Doctor’ll be here asap to examine you. Until then, get in bed and make yourself comfortable.” She picked up the dreaded plastic basket and took out a tourniquet. “I’m just going to take a blood sample and get an IV port in you, just in case.” She wrapped the tourniquet around Lena’s arm just as Lena felt another wave build up, and she groaned.   
“That’s it”, the nurse said. “Keep breathing.” She didn’t let go of Lena’s hand and for a second, Lena thought she meant to comfort her, but then the nurse jammed a needle into her arm.  
“There”, she said. “All set. Try to get some rest while you still can.”   
To her surprise, Lena heard herself say: “he’s in prison. My… The baby’s father.”  
The nurse shrugged. “Happens to the best of ‘em, I’m sure.”  
“He used to beat me.”  
“Well, good for you for getting out.” She seemed unimpressed, but then she added: “I can tell you’re dreading this. Everyone does, whether they’re homeless drug addicts or millionaires.”  
“I was going to end it”, Lena said, not sure why she was prattling on like this. “I scheduled an appointment with a clinic and everything. I waited forever to do it. I knew I had to, but I couldn’t, and then I couldn’t postpone it anymore.” She suddenly felt tears on her face. “I was almost twenty weeks along, I was beginning to show. I made an appointment. Made it all the way into the waiting room, even, but they were running late. I’d told my boss I was on vacation, but he called me back in. I couldn’t think of an excuse to say no, so I left. I knew I wouldn’t get back before the twenty weeks were up.” She was full-on crying now. “So that’s why I’m pregnant. Bad planning.”  
“Those little bastards never let you plan ahead, do they?”, the nurse said. “Welcome to parenthood. It sucks. You’ll love it.” 

The nurse left her with instructions to get in bed, take it easy and wait for the doctor to come. Lena wasn’t sure why she’d even bothered saying it; what else was she going to do?   
There wasn’t much by way of distraction in the room. Lena had seen pictures of the delivery rooms in Augusta. They’d been comfortable, clean, with serene mood lighting, a tv, a stereo, a bath, even. This room had nothing of the sort; it clearly hadn’t been redone in several decades. The linoleum looked relatively new but the walls were scuffed and dented in places; many of the tiles were cracked. No tv here, not even a magazine. It was as if they were trying to finally get her to do some introspection.   
Gingerly, she got on the bed and lay down, tucking the sheets around her; when there was nothing left to straighten or tuck into place she folded her hands over her chest and waited, heart still pounding. Immediately the pain began again. This time it was almost unbearable. She shot up, squirming and groaning, kicking her legs in frustration. Lie down and relax. That had been a cruel joke. How were you supposed to relax if your body felt like it was trying to tear itself in two?   
After it had ebbed away she lay down again, waiting miserably until the next wave would roll up. Contractions, the nurse had said, and Lena had refused to think of them as such. She took a deep breath. She was having contractions. She was going to have a baby in a few hours’ time.   
She didn’t want to think about it, and so she allowed her mind to wander to a different place where she didn’t usually allow it to go.   
She missed Ethan right now, and she missed him badly.   
He was bad for her, she knew that, but people like Jeffrey, who only saw the outside and whatever they read in his criminal file, they couldn’t understand that when he wasn’t abusing her, when he wasn’t beating her or raping her or calling her everything under the sun, he made her feel safe. It made no sense and yet it did. Better the devil you know, a therapist she’d been seeing for a while had pointed out, but it was more than that. When they were at the supermarket and a guy was standing just a little too close, Ethan would make him go away. A drunk shouting racial epithets at her would sober up after a quick conversation with Ethan, never mind that, under his shirt, he was covered in swastikas. He didn’t need to use his fists or even raise his voice most of the time; he radiated such confidence and aggression, his muscles bulging under his tight black t-shirt, that people would acutely change their minds. Lena had known how to push his buttons like no other. Ethan was never going to hit that stranger, even if they didn’t know it themselves. He had too much self-restraint for that. With her, he let loose because he knew he could.   
He would have been good here, today, though. He’d have been calm and in control. He would’ve gotten the doctors and nurses to do his bidding. He would have stood up for her. He would have been indefatigable. He would have fetched her drinks and rubbed her back, held her hand, talked her through it. He would have taken the whole damn affair and managed it for her.  
He also would have beaten the shit out of her the moment they got home. She shook her head, angry and bitter at her own stupidity. Physical distance should have made it easier to see him for what he was: a manipulative asshole. He wasn’t going to come in her and hold her hand; nobody was. If she was going to raise this kid alone she might as well get a head start.  
But then the door opened and Agent Colvin came in.   
“Get out”, Lena said, sitting up so quickly she felt dizzy, just as Agent Colvin said: “you left your purse out in the hallway.” She placed Lena’s bag on the table beside her bed. Grudgingly, Lena said “thanks” but then another contraction rolled up, and she gritted her teeth trying not to make too much of an ass of herself. It was hopeless. She wanted to tell the other woman to leave her the fuck alone, but she knew if she opened her mouth all that would come out was moaning, swearing and screaming.   
Agent Colvin seemed to hesitate, but then she said resolutely: “you need to get off the bed.”  
-“What?” Lena exhaled tersely as the pain faded. “I don’t - the nurse told me to get - “  
“Well, the nurse doesn’t have to give birth.” She put her own bag down on the floor, walked around the bed and gestured for Lena to get to her feet.  
“Trust me”, she said. “I’ve done this seven times. By all means if you want to lie down then lie down, but moving around’ll probably help a lot more.”  
“Go away”, Lena said, but she shook her head.  
“You shouldn’t be alone.”  
“I’ll be fine.”  
“Giving birth is hard and you’re in an inner city emergency room that’s perpetually understaffed.” She crossed her arms. “If you don’t want me here then call someone else. I’ll leave the moment they get here.”  
Lena felt caught out at that. Even if she called Nan right now, even if Nan would drop everything instantly, it would take her at least three hours to get here; probably more, because by the time she’d get here it’d be rush hour. It would be hours.   
She was too tired and too wound up for lies and platitudes, so she said: “I don’t trust you”, to Agent Colvin, who nodded.   
“I know. There’s not really anything I can do to change that, is there?”  
“Not really.”  
Agent Colvin shrugged. “If it helps, you could confess to high treason and it wouldn’t be admissible. Any judge would throw it out and fire my ass. Aside from that, I really don’t think you had anything to do with Jane Doe, so let’s settle for that, alright?”  
“I can handle it.”  
“No, you can’t”, she said calmly. “Not here. Trust me.” To Lena’s surprise, she reached out her hand. Lena stared at it for a full three seconds before she got the woman’s meaning.  
“I’m Artemis”, the other woman said. “Call me Art.”  
“Lena”, Lena mumbled, looking away. Agent Colvin dropped her hand. “Good.” She eyed the grimy floor, then turned around and began to rummage through the cupboards. Lena watched her with trepidation.  
“What are you doing?”  
“Looking for slippers. This floor is fucking filthy. There should be some flip-flops in here.” She pulled out a plastic wrapper. “Here. They’re about three sizes too big, but they’ll keep your feet clean.” She tore the wrapper and put them on the floor. “Come on”, and Lena obediently slipped off the bed and wriggled her feet into the plastic bands. They were, indeed, too big; together with the enormous gown she was wearing she felt patently ridiculous. The room was cold and she shivered, crossing her arms over her chest and feeling insecure.  
“Right”, Agent Colvin - Art, Lena reminded herself - told her. “There’s a vending machine in the hallway. I think I saw some Gatorade in there. That might be good.”  
“I don’t - ”, Lena began, but Art had already left the room. Being alone felt even less appealing than before and to her own surprise, Lena spent a minute or so anxiously staring at the clock until Art got back. She put the bottle down just as another contraction rolled up, and Lena groaned, doubling over, grabbing on to the edge of the bed, but Art helped her up, slung her arm around her shoulders and made her shuffle through the room, inching one foot on front of the other.   
“Keep breathing”, she told Lena. “That’s it. Keep breathing.” She kept repeating herself, and Lena closed her eyes, trying to focus. She felt hopeless. It wasn’t that she couldn’t cope with the pain; sure, it hurt, but she’d been in pain before. It was the unfamiliarity of this territory that scared her, the dread of what was yet to come. Standing up and walking around seemed to help a little, but already she felt exhausted.   
“Want to sit down for a while?”, Art asked when the contraction had faded, and Lena nodded silently. Art gently put her down on the chair by the bed and offered her the bottle of Gatorade. Lena shook her head. The way she felt, she was just going to throw it all up again.   
“Alright”, Agent Colvin - Art, Lena kept reminding herself - said, and she put the bottle back down. “Let me know if you change your mind.” She sat down on the bed. “I think it helps. Not sure if it’s between the ears or whether there’s an actual reason for this, but I only ever drink Gatorade when I’m in labour.” She smiled. “Last time they ran out, so my husband got me Mountain Dew. I threw it at his head and sent him to the supermarket across the road.”  
Lena had to ask: “how much worse is this going to get?”  
Art gave her a thoughtful look and mulled it over. “They’ll get worse, they’ll last longer and they’ll be closer together, right up until the point where you think you’re going to die, and then it’s almost over.” She paused for a few more seconds. “It’s hard, but you’ll do fine. Just do what you need to do. Want to scream your head off, do that. Wanna lie still on the bed, go for it. Vodka’s probably not the best way to do it but everything else’s fair game.” She smiled again. Lena thought the joke was less funny.   
She felt another wave roll up and scrambled to get to her feet before it peaked. Art got off the bed and helped her up, and they began their trek through the room again, and again as another contraction announced itself, barely giving Lena room to breathe in between. The pain was unexpectedly fierce; she’d read they were basically bad menstrual cramps, but this was unlike anything she’d ever felt, a hot, searing pain that held her in its grip and almost paralysed her, and just when its jaws seemed to relax even a little, it would flare up again.   
“I don’t think I can do this much longer”, Lena said after what felt like an eternity. Art looked at the clock and told her: “you’re doing great.”  
“I can’t… I mean, I don’t - “ The words left her as yet another contraction rolled up, and she had to fight her instinct to start bawling like a child. Art said something soothing she didn’t quite catch, but then her knees buckled, and she had to grab the bed to stop herself from falling on the floor entirely. She heard herself groan. When the pain ebbed away, she asked: “how long has it been?”  
“About two hours, I think”, Art said.  
Two hours, Lena thought. It might have been five minutes, or ten hours, or anything in between. She’d lost all sense of time. All she felt was pain, dread and exhaustion.   
“How long does it… usually take?”, she asked, gasping for breath, in the all too brief interval before one contraction ended and another one rolled up.   
“First birth? About ten hours”, Art said, wrapping her arm around Lena’s waist and gently inching her forward. “But I think you’ve been having contractions all day, so....” She took another look at the clock. “That damn doctor had better hurry, though.”  
The doctor. She’d forgotten all about him. She felt the panic rise up through her throat, and her voice was thin and reedy when she asked: “what’s he going to do?”  
“Not much”, Art said casually. “Check the baby’s position and heart rate, check how far you’re dilated, and unless you’re all the way there that’s probably it. Come on, keep breathing.”   
But she couldn’t. Her knees buckled again, and Art gently let her down, so she ended up on her hands and knees, groaning, like a fucking animal, as the pain tore through her. She felt her mouth move, but her brain didn’t know what she was saying and the blood rushing in her ears stopped her from hearing. Art kneeled down beside her, whispering encouragement and rubbing her back, and Lena wanted to yell at her to go away. She might have done so; she wasn’t sure. And then, suddenly, she was on her feet again, leaning on the bed, her head resting on her arms, and she felt her own hot breath in jagged bursts against her skin. Someone was talking to her, and with sudden clarity she realised it was the doctor. She looked up to see him leaning down in front of her, on the other side of the bed. She recognised his strange, green eyes from before.  
“Oh God”, she groaned. “Not you. Fuck off.”  
“Told you she was getting close”, Art said. She was standing next to the doctor, and Lena felt inexplicably threatened by the both of them across from her, forming a united front when all she wanted was to be left alone.  
“Lena, you think you can lie down on the bed for a second?”, the doctor asked. She’d forgotten his name and he wasn’t wearing a name tag. She shook her head, bracing herself as another wave peaked. The doctor waited, studying her quietly. It made her feel uneasy, though she didn’t have much time to think about it.   
“I just need to check the baby’s heart rate”, he said. “I can’t do that if you’re standing up. It’ll only be a minute or so.”  
“Leave me alone”, she told him, and though she knew he wouldn’t, she meant it with every fiber of her being. Yet he wouldn’t go away; he nodded understandingly, which pissed her off, and he said: “I know you’re in a lot of pain right now, but - “  
“How the fuck would you know?”, she snapped at him, and Art said: “she’s got a point.” He ignored both of them.   
“I need you to work with me, Lena. Can you try?”  
Vehemently, she shook her head. Her body felt like it was being ripped apart. Moving even an inch seemed impossible.   
“Come on”, the doctor coaxed. “The sooner you’ll let me take a look at you, the sooner I’ll be out of your hair.”  
She shook her head. “I can’t.”  
“We’ll help you”, Art said. Lena didn’t bother responding; when Art put a hand on her shoulder to try and guide her, she violently jerked her body away.   
“Alright”, the doctor said. “Never mind. This’ll have to do. Lena, I’m going to examine your cervix. Just stay where you are. Won’t take long.”  
“What’s he… Is he…” She couldn’t find the words. Art leaned down a little and told her: “he’s just going to get a pair of gloves.”  
“For what?!” She knew the answer, but the pain and fear were making her head swim. “I don’t want him to - “  
“I know”, Art said soothingly. “It sucks, but it’s important.”  
“I can’t”, Lena said, now truly panicking. “I can’t, I don’t - “  
“It’ll only be for a few seconds.”  
“No!” She tried to get up off the bed, but her legs were locked and wouldn’t move.   
“Yes”, Art said sternly. “Come on, man up. It’s not going to get any worse than it is now.”  
Lena begged to differ, especially when the doctor approached her from the side, where she couldn’t see him properly.   
“Go away!”, she shouted at him, but he ignored her. Art, across from her, grabbed both of her hands and said: “just look at me, alright? Look at me and keep breathing.”  
Lena shook her head, and she felt sobs rise up in her throat. It was no use trying to stop them, and she gave up, squeezing her eyes shut so she wouldn’t have to look at Art’s all too understanding face.   
“Alright”, she heard the doctor say. He was crouching behind her now. She wanted to kick him, but the pain held her glued to the spot. “Lena, you’re going to feel me touch you now. Deep breaths, okay? It’ll be over soon.”  
She shook her head, but neither of them were listening to her, and she felt helpless and hopelessly alone.   
“Squeeze my hands”, Art said, just as she felt the doctor’s fingers slip into her body, and it was so much like before, like him, that she screamed with fear.   
“It’s alright”, Art kept telling her, and all Lena could think was: no, it’s not alright, and it will never be alright.   
“Nine, maybe nine and a half”, the doctor said, getting up. He made his way over to the other side of the bed and bent down so he was level with her. Sobbing, she turned her face away from him, squeezing her eyes shut to drown him out.   
Nevertheless, when he said: “you’re doing really well” each word seemed to hit her like a bullet. She wanted nothing more than for him to go away. She felt violated. She didn’t trust him.   
“Nine and a half is good”, Art said a little too cheerfully. “Nearly there now.”  
“I can’t - “  
“I need you to focus on your breathing”, the doctor said. “I’m just going to get some things ready. If you feel the urge to push, try not to give in to it, alright?”  
“Go away!”, she yelled at him, and she was surprised when he actually got up. He began to rummage around in the cupboards.  
“What’s he doing?”, she asked Art, hating how her voice sounded, whiney and shrill. “What the hell - “  
“He’s just going to get some things ready for when the baby comes out”, Art said.   
Fuck. The baby. The fucking baby. Lena shook her read. She’d almost forgotten what - or who - had gotten her into this whole shitshow in the first place. All this pain and misery, and it was only the beginning.   
“I can’t”, she told Art, still sobbing. “I can’t have a baby.”  
“Yes you can”, Art said decidedly, and Lena was almost grateful for her confidence. “Babies are easy.”  
“I can’t even take care of myself”, she whispered, but Art shook her head. “Let’s worry about that later, alright? Just focus on this now.”  
“I don’t - “ She gasped for breath again, and Art told her: “Lena, stop pushing. Stop pushing!”  
She didn’t realise she had been doing just that.   
“Deep breaths now”, Art instructed, but suddenly the urge was powerful, and it was everywhere.   
“I can’t - “  
“Keep breathing”, Art said, but Lena shook her head. She couldn’t help it. She was failing at this, just like she’d failed at everything else in life. She didn’t want a baby. She just wanted it to be over.   
“Uh, doc, you might want to - “, Art said. The doctor rushed over, squatted down on the ground beside her where she couldn’t see him; she felt him spread disposable sheets on the floor around her feet.   
“Alright”, he told her. “Bear down, hard as you can.”  
She didn’t want to, she really didn’t want to, but a primal part of her brain kicked into action and she pushed, gritting her teeth as she felt her body stretch and give way. The skin between her legs felt like it was on fire, and beads of sweat rolled down her body. She heard Art encourage her, but she ignored it.   
“Stop pushing”, the doctor ordered her, but she couldn’t. He repeated himself, more vehemently this time. “Lena, stop pushing! Breathe!”  
She tried to, and she drew a gasping breath just as the pain suddenly spiked, and she heard herself give a hoarse, guttural groan.   
And then the pressure gave way; something big, smooth and heavy slithered out of her, and just like that, the pain stopped. Her legs began to shake and she slid down onto the towels the doctor had laid out so that they were eye to eye. He was holding a baby. It was tiny, covered in blood, and for what seemed like an eternity, nothing happened; then, it drew its first breath and began to howl vociferously, its limbs, unaccustomed to such space, waving spasmodically.   
“Motherfucker”, Lena said.   
It was as if they air had been sucked out of the room. Art helped her up on the bed and Lena, suddenly dizzy, let her, but then the doctor pushed the baby into her arms.   
“No…”, she said, but they weren’t listening to her. The baby was still screaming, and she had no idea what to do. It was impossibly small and she felt an immense rush of sympathy run over her for this tiny creature, forced out from its safe place into a cruel, cold world. That didn’t mean she knew what it needed, though. Clumsily she tried to shush it. It seemed so tiny and light, its limbs skinny - weren’t babies supposed to be fat?   
“Lungs work”, Art said drily. The nurse who’d examined her before - where had she come from? - put a towel over the baby and began to wipe off some of the blood and the strange, white crud that, she now noticed, was everywhere. The baby was purple. Was that good? She remembered the word. Hypoxia. Not good. Another thing she’d done wrong. She began to cry again, but the nurse said: “baby’s doing fine, don’t worry. We’ll have a pediatrician take a look later just to make sure.” Art squeezed her shoulder. The baby’s howling settled into an indignant whine, and she stroked her thumb over its sticky wet hair. It had thick, black hair, not at all like the pale fuzz she’d imagined. Its eyes were wide open; blue, but not like Ethan’s. They were darker. There was nothing of Ethan in there. Intuitively, she stroked its hand, and the tiny fingers wrapped themselves around her index finger. She saw the tiny fingernails, the creases and folds in the skin, and she wondered how her body had been able to put something so complex together without her knowing.   
“Placenta’s out”, she heard the doctor say. He was still between her legs, only this time she hadn’t noticed. Art put her hand on Lena’s shoulder.   
“You alright? You look a bit peaky.”  
It was such a stupid question that she almost laughed, but she suddenly felt light-headed and dizzy, even though she was lying down.   
“I need ten cc of oxytocin IV”, she heard the doctor say. “Lena? You’ll be fine, I just need some extra hands here so I’m going to push this button” - he pushed a blue button that was mounted on the wall - “and some other people are going to come in to help me, alright?”  
Lena nodded, just as the world went black. She heard the doctor swear, and then she was out.


	12. Chapter 12

“Hey, you’re awake.”  
She hadn’t noticed that she was, but the world slowly swam into focus. Slowly, she blinked. The room was dark, though she could still see. She was in a bed. Her head hurt and her body felt impossibly heavy, like she’d been encased in lead. Her nose was cold; there were oxygen tubes on her face, and she could feel her skin sweating against the plastic. With some effort, she turned her head to the side. Agent Colvin was sitting beside her, curled up in a chair underneath a blanket. She looked tired. Her hair, which had been perfectly coiffed up until that point, was now a bird’s nest of a mess.   
“Everything’s fine. You lost a lot of blood, but you’ll be okay. Baby’s in the baby room.”  
The baby. She remembered everything now. Apparently, they’d taken it away already. Perhaps that was for the best.   
“It’s about three AM”, Art said. “Try to go back to sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning, I promise.”  
Lena didn’t think she’d be able to sleep, but as soon as she closed her eyes she was out. 

She woke up properly several hours later when a nurse barged into her room carrying a clattering breakfast tray with all the subtlety of a rhino in a pink tutu, nearly giving Lena a heart attack in the process. She tried to sit up too quickly; immediately, the walls began to sway.   
“Good morning… Oh dear. Lie down, sweetie.” She put the breakfast tray on the side table and began to shake Lena’s pillow. “You’re going to be just fine. You just need to rest.” There was something sweet on her breath that made Lena’s stomach churn, and she turned her head away. A bag of blood hung on the IV stand along with a bag of saline, dripping into her body in equal measure. The chair beside the bed was empty. Art must have snuck off during the night. Lena couldn’t blame her, but she felt inexplicably abandoned.  
“I’m going to put the head of the bed up a little, alright? You can get a bit of food in you and we’ll get you your baby.”  
Part of Lena wanted nothing more than to tell her not to bother, but another part of her wanted nothing more than to see the baby, to hold it, to cradle it in her arms. It took her off guard completely, and she felt taken aback by the sudden rush of longing.   
She sat up again, slowly this time, and waited impatiently as the nurse fiddled with the pillows some more, then left the room. Uneasily she took a bite of her toast. It was like cardboard in her mouth. She felt weak and jittery at the same time, eager yet reluctant. The door opened and the nurse came back in, wheeling what looked like a transparent laundry basket on a metal frame in front of her.   
“Here we are”, she said. “All yours, mommy.”  
“Don’t call me that”, Lena snapped, but she couldn’t keep her eyes off the basinet. She saw a blue and pink striped hat, a white blanket with a multitude of pastel blobs on it. Between it, a tiny face, bloated and grouchy.   
“I’m sorry, I don’t - is it a boy or a girl?”, Lena asked. The words were out of her mouth before she’d realised she didn’t know.   
“A healthy baby girl”, the nurse said, folding back the blanket and picking it up. Picking her up. Lena swallowed. A girl. Not a miniature Ethan. Girls were different, more - more what, exactly?   
“Are you sure? I thought - “ She didn’t finish her sentence.  
“Ultrasound got it wrong?”, the nurse asked sympathetically. Lena shook her head. “I just thought... “  
“She looks just like you”, the nurse said, and before Lena knew it, she had the baby in her arms again.   
“There”, the nurse said, satisfied. “Have you thought of a name yet?”  
Speechless, she shook her head. The nurse said something else but she didn’t hear. Quietly, she ran her fingers across the baby’s head. The baby’s eyelids fluttered, and she sighed. All Lena could do was look at the tiny fingers, the lashes, the puckered lips, and wonder how the hell her body had puzzled all of this together. It seemed impossible. She’d have asked if a mistake had been made but even Lena could see that it - she - looked like her.  
The baby began to squirm and just as the nurse said “she’s probably hungry”, the tiny mouth opened and something that sounded much like a cat’s meowing came out. The small body went rigid, rock solid, and the tiny face began to turn bright red.   
“That’s a good sign”, the nurse told her, raising her voice slightly. “Preemies aren’t always hungry. And she’s got a good set of lungs on her, too!”   
“Preemie?”, Lena asked, bewildered. The nurse shrugged. “Your doctor’s office said you were thirty-six weeks and three days along, so she’s slightly premature. But don’t you worry, the pediatrician had a look at her and she’s doing fine. We’ll keep her here for a few days just to make sure. Now, did you want to breastfeed or are you going to use formula?”  
“Fuck if I know”, Lena said, distracted by the squirming creature in her arms. At the back of her mind the thought formed that she was going to have to stop swearing so much.   
“Well”, the nurse said, “we recommend breastfeeding. It’s also easier to switch from breast to bottle than the other way around.” And before Lena knew what was happening she pulled up the hideous hospital gown and crudely shoved the baby’s face onto Lena’s chest, and her resolution to stop swearing so much went right out the window when the baby latched on.  
“Oh dear”, the nurse said, then: “she’s a natural!”  
“A natural what, a vampire?”, Lena gasped. “Jesus fucking - “  
“It’ll get better once you get used to it”, the nurse said. Lena glanced down at the baby, no longer squirming but still tightly wound. Once she got used to it. She didn’t think she was ever going to get used to this.   
The nurse told her she’d be back soon and disappeared, and only when the door had closed, Lena realised she was alone with the baby for the first time. She wanted to call the nurse back in, but the words got caught in her throat. This was ridiculous. A few days from now she’d truly be on her own. There would be no button to press to summon a nurse. She might as well get used to it now.   
Again, she looked at the baby’s face, stroking her slick, dark hair, and wondered if she was feeling all the right things. How did other people feel? Happy? Elated? Surely at least some of them felt the fear and confusion she was feeling at the thought that this tiny human was now fully dependent on her and her alone.   
Babies are easy, Art had said. Lena didn’t believe a word of it. 

Art stopped by later that morning and by then Lena was almost grateful for the distraction.   
“Morning”, she said cheerfully, though she looked tired. “I thought I’d come by before work. I brought you baby clothes.” She swung around a bulging plastic bag. “Got some sweats for you too. I think we’re about the same size.”  
“You didn’t need to - “  
“No, I didn’t, but I did it anyway. That’s how I roll. And you didn’t have any baby clothes with you. Keep it, I have more sweat shirts and baby clothes than I know what to do with.” She put the bag on the floor and peered down at the baby. Lena, feeling tired and drained, watched from the bed. She’d been awake for two hours, at most, yet she felt wrung out.   
“She seems content”, Art said.   
“She ought to be”, Lena replied. “She just about drained me. Literally.”  
Art laughed and sat down next to the bed. “Well, you did lose a lot of blood. Now that I know you’re not going to die I wish I’d have taken a picture. It was amazing.”  
“Well, I’m glad you thought it was funny”, Lena said dourly.   
“No, it was terrifying”, Art said. “The floodgates just opened. That poor doctor was literally dripping in blood. He looked like he’d butchered a pig.”  
“I don’t remember”, Lena said. “I mean, even before - “   
“That’s normal. Might come back, might not.” She stretched out on the seat.   
Because of the bloodloss and possibly because she meant it, Lena said: “Thanks for staying with me yesterday.”  
“No worries. Jane Doe wasn’t going anywhere. And anyway, it was kind of fun.”  
“For you, maybe.”  
“Learned a lot of new swear words, too. I thought I knew them all by now.” She smiled again. “The only births I’d ever been at are my own. It was all very recognisable.”  
“Yeah, everything except the full-blown meltdown and the pool of blood.”  
“I’ve never covered my OBGYN in blood, no, that’s true, but I’ve had plenty of meltdowns. For what it’s worth I still think I’m going to die every damn time. I also think ‘this is the last time I’m doing this’ right up to the point where I get pregnant again.”  
Lena wondered whether it was true or whether she was just saying it to make Lena feel better.   
To distract herself, she asked: “how’s Jane Doe?”  
“Same.” Art shrugged. “I sent pictures to a bunch of ballet schools on the off chance that she’s from around here, which seems increasingly unlikely and I contacted Europol and Interpol to get the rest of our bases covered, but it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”  
“Especially if she’s Russian?”  
“I’m not even going to bother going in that direction”, Art said. “I’m going to leave that to Interpol but in any case, if it’s human trafficking, unless she wakes up and tells us who she is we might never know. It’s unlikely anyone’s going to come forward to claim her.”  
Still, Lena thought, something was off here. She said: “ballet classes are expensive, right? And most human trafficking victims are poor. It doesn’t match.”  
“She could have fallen in with the wrong crowd, have a loverboy type of boyfriend”, Art said.  
“But then there’d be a family to miss her.”  
“Rich people aren’t home that much.”  
“True, but she’d been starved for at least two weeks. Someone would have noticed.” Lena’s eyes were burning with fatigue, but still she felt a lot better. This was familiar territory. This, she could do. “It could be an organised crime revenge kidnapping. That would explain why the parents haven’t stepped forward.”  
“Either that, or they’re dead.” Art glanced at the clock. “But then someone else would have missed them. Rich people with children tend not to be shut-ins.” She got up. “I’m going to talk to Dos Santos again, see if I can get him to let Tex have another go.” She glanced at the baby again, who was fast asleep in her crib, worn out. “I forgot to ask - what did you name her?”  
“I haven’t yet”, Lena said, and she felt a pang of disappointment that they were apparently done with talking about the case. “I thought I was having a boy.”  
“Really?” Art chuckled. “Did the ultrasound get it wrong?”  
“No. I never asked them to check. I just thought she was a boy.”  
“What was your boy’s name?”  
“Calvin”, Lena said, and she hated how her voice had dropped to a whisper. “After my father.”  
“Your mother’s name is not an option?”  
“No.”  
“I know you had a sister”, Art said gently, and that stung more than it should have. For a second, Lena thought she was going to cry, but it subsided, and she said: “I thought about it… But she really hated her name. I think she would’ve killed me.”  
“Any grandmothers, aunts, cousins or…”  
Lena shook her head. Art sat down again.   
“Alright, so no family names”, she said. “What kind of names do you like?”  
“I like normal names”, Lena said. “No offense.” Art laughed. “You’re not going to name her after me? I’m so disappointed.” She pointed at Lena’s phone on the bedsite table. “There’s apps you can download.”  
“I know.” She’d tried one that morning at the nurse’s prompting, but after two minutes of staring at the screen all the words had begun to blur.   
“Let’s see”, Art said. “What’s your favourite book?”  
Lena shrugged. “I don’t know.”  
“You’re not a reader?”  
“I am, but I don’t think I have a favourite.”  
“What’s the last book you read?”  
“Uh...Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca.” Art opened her mouth, but she shook her head. “No. Not Rebecca.”   
“Alright. Who’s your favourite singer?”  
“Joan Jett”, Lena said, without thinking.   
“That makes perfect sense”, Art said. “Alright. Joan?”  
“No.”  
“Joan… Joanna… Hannah?”  
Lena looked at the baby and wondered if she was a Hannah. Art said: “I think it suits her.”  
“I don’t hate it”, Lena admitted.   
“Well”, Art said as she got up, “mull it over for a while, but it’s a pretty safe pick. You can’t really go wrong with Hannah.”

The name landed in her mind and stuck there like glue. No matter which other name she tried to think of it kept coming back to her, like a boomerang. She wasn’t even sure she liked it more than any other name, but Art was right, it did seem to fit so when the charge nurse came in after Art had left and asked her if she’d thought of something yet, Lena said: “Hannah.”  
“That’s nice”, the nurse said. Lena supposed they said it about every name; you couldn’t very well tell people they made the wrong choice in that department, though, judging from the birth announcements on the notice board in Pendergast’s office, that might not have been such a bad idea.   
“Regular H-A-N-N-A-H?”, the nurse asked, and Lena nodded. She never saw the point in creative spelling. All it did was make classroom attendance awkward.   
The nurse wrote down the name on her clipboard, then on a piece of cardboard which she stuck to the basinet. HANNAH ADAMS, it read, and suddenly Lena wondered if these were, perhaps, too many As in one name, and then she suddenly understood why most people picked the name so early on.   
It couldn’t be helped.  
“Right”, the nurse said. “Time for her feeding, and then I’ll get you some lunch.”  
Lena wanted to tell the nurse she wasn’t hungry, but experience had taught her that this was never a good idea in a hospital setting, so she nodded obediently as the nurse helped her up. When she handed the baby to her it felt almost familiar - the warmth, the sweet scent with a sour undercurrent, the soft blankets. This time the baby was fast asleep.   
“I don’t think she’s hungry”, Lena said, hoping and not hoping at the same time that the nurse would put the baby back in her crib. “She’s still asleep.”  
“Preemies do that sometimes”, the nurse said. “Maybe she’ll wake up once she smells the milk.”   
Watching the nurse gently awaken the baby then manoeuvre it onto her breast felt like an out of body experience, almost. It was so far from what she was used to that she almost laughed, at least until the baby latched on, and she groaned.  
“It’ll get better”, the nurse said, though Lena felt like what she wanted to say was “stop whining.”  
“How are you feeling today?”, the nurse asked as she stuck a thermometer in Lena’s ear, and Lena pondered the question for a while. Distant. Overwhelmed. Confused. Exhausted. Drained. Weary. Weirdly excited, too. Eventually, she shrugged. “Just a bit tired.”  
“You’ll feel better soon”, the nurse said. “Any dizziness?” She began to wrap a blood pressure cuff around Lena’s arm. Lena shook her head. Hannah, still at her breast, suddenly began to wave one arm up and down and Lena grabbed it, then felt guilty, then wondered why Hannah’s skin was so red and wrinkly. She traced the tiny waves and creases with her index finger. Hannah’s hand was soft, and when Lena picked it up her fingers grappled idly into nothingness for a few seconds before they found Lena’s pinky and wrapped themselves around it. Lena laughed in surprise. She didn’t know babies could do that.   
When she looked up, the nurse had quietly left the room.


	13. Chapter 13

Two days later

The hot water hit her like a shot of morphine; she felt better immediately, more relaxed, less stressed out. She let the stink of the hospital wash off of her and stood very still for at least ten minutes before settling on the soap and shampoo that Nan had been considerate enough to bring for her. It was nice soap, the kind that came from a pressurised can to form thick layers of foam. The perfume would normally have been too heavy for her liking but at least it overpowered the musk of medicine and sweat that seemed to have settled all over her - not to mention breast milk and baby vomit.  
There was a knock on the door and Lena heard a nurse call out: “Miss Adams, are you alright in there?”  
“Fine”, Lena snapped. She couldn’t very well blame Hannah for not giving her any alone time but she could take a damn shower on her own.  
Still, with some regret, she rinsed off the soap and shampoo, switched off the shower and towelled herself off, all the while trying to ignore the flabby, red-streaked skin on her stomach. Nan’s box of cosmetics included a bottle of body lotion as well and Lena treated herself to an extra thick layer, hoping to keep the antiseptic smell of hospital away for a little bit longer, but just as she’d finished putting it on her legs she heard a shriek come from the room, followed by something that sounded half like a rusty chain saw, half like a cat in heat.  
“You have got to be kidding me”, she groaned. Art would have said to let her cry for a bit but Lena wasn’t quite at that point yet, so she grumbled her way into her bathrobe, tied her wet hair in a messy bun, and went back on duty.  
Hannah’s face was bright red, even under the UV lights that were supposed to help with the jaundice; her arms and legs were flailing, and her face was scrunched up and crimson. When Lena picked her up she settled a little, and the screaming went down a notch as she turned her head towards Lena’s chest, looking for food, her mouth gaping like a fish’s.  
“No way”, Lena said, glancing at the clock. “You ate an hour ago.”  
Hannah, realising food would not be forthcoming, began to howl again, and Lena groaned. “Kid, I’m not a fucking cow. Get a grip.” She shoved her pinky finger in Hannah’s mouth, rocking back and forth on her heels in the hopes that it would soothe the baby enough to calm down. When she wasn’t crying, Hannah looked unintimidating in her navy onesie with matching hat and white socks - Art’s castoffs, though it all looked barely worn - but as soon as she realised that Lena’s fingers did not produce milk her face began to twitch again, and Lena understood she was going to have to pull out all the stops now. Racking her brain, she tried to think of songs she knew that a baby might like but the first and only thing that came to mind was The Eagles’ Desperado, possibly because Hank had played the record pretty much non-stop when she’d been a child. Strangely, it seemed to work; Hannah stopped screaming and settled for a petulant whine, then a discontented groaning, her cloudy eyes unseeing. Fine, but don’t expect to get off so easy next time, they seemed to say, and Lena wistfully thought to herself: well, don’t I know it.  
“I didn’t know you could sing”, Jeffrey said, and she turned around so fast it made her head spin. He was standing in the doorway to the room, a bouquet of flowers dangling from his fingertips.  
“I didn’t know you liked the Eagles either”, he continued. “I brought you flowers.”  
“Thanks”, she said, awkwardly clutching her bathrobe to her neck, uncomfortably aware of the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. What was he doing here?  
As if on cue, he said: “I picked up Sara from the airport. She wanted to see Jane Doe in person, see if it rings any bells.”  
“Did it?”  
He shrugged and sat down on the chair beside her bed. “I don’t know, she’s still up there. She said she’d stop by here later. She likes to visit her new patients.”  
She didn’t like the implication that it was a given that Hannah would become Sara’s patient, but she couldn’t very well tell Jeffrey that she was going to see someone else - and besides, there WAS no-one else. She was stuck on Sara Linton for the foreseeable future. She gave Jeffrey a feeble smile, but he wasn’t looking at her; he was looking at her chest. For a second she thought he was staring at her breasts, but then she remembered that she was holding Hannah. Holding the baby, even after two days, was almost second nature. Still, there wasn’t much to see: a small patch of face swaddled in tiny clothes that still didn’t fit and a blanket. Only her fist, still balled in angry defiance, stuck out from between the folds.  
“So how’ve you been?”, Jeffrey asked, and she didn’t know how to even begin answering that, so she said: “busy.” He laughed at that, then continued: “Seriously though, I thought you weren’t due for another few weeks.”  
“I wasn’t”, Lena said. “She had other plans.”  
“She’s stubborn”, Jeffrey said, “like her mother.”  
She almost winced at his comment, not because of what he said but of the things he wasn’t saying. Ethan had been stubborn, more so than Lena herself.  
She hadn’t put Ethan’s name on the birth certificate, had told the charge nurse that she didn’t know who the father was. The nurse had looked appropriately sceptical but hadn’t challenged her. This was a different story. Jeffrey knew, and Lena understood she was going to have to talk to him about it sooner rather than later.  
Art had called him when Lena had still been knocked out. In retrospect, Art had arranged a lot of things. She’d phoned Jeffrey, had asked him to contact Hank and Nan, had arranged for toiletries and clothes for her and the baby, and she’d stayed with Lena throughout most of the night. Even now she popped in most mornings and evenings before the start and at the end of her shift, though her boss had assigned her elsewhere; there was little to go on anymore. Tex was still running lab work but the results wouldn’t be due for another week or so. Tex had also sent her a long, rambling card detailing obscure postpartum rituals from the European mainland and an enormous bouquet of pink flowers that looked like it had cost a small fortune, which Jeffrey was now staring at with a puzzled look on his face. He didn’t ask about them, but put his own modest bundle of tulips next to them on the table with a look of regret.  
“So”, Jeffrey said, “have you thought of a name yet?”  
“Hannah.” She tried not to squirm. The entire conversation was making her uncomfortable. They didn’t do private, Jeffrey and her, not if they could help it. Not if SHE could help it; she knew more about his private life than he did about hers, not counting the parts that pertained to Ethan, or Sybil’s death. Of course he didn’t know she could sing; she wasn’t about to give him a demonstration during car rides or down at the station. She’d look like an idiot.  
“Hannah? I like it. It’s pretty. Family name?”  
“No”, Lena replied, and, realising she sounded a little bitchy, she added: “I just liked it.”  
“I could have sworn you were having a boy.”  
“Me too”, she said dryly.  
To her surprise, he got up again and walked over to her, peering into the bundle of blankets in her arms. A brief look crossed over his face, like the shadow of a cloud being chased off by the wind, but then he said: “She looks just like you.”  
“Yeah, I get that a lot.” She resisted the temptation to pull Hannah away from him, not because she didn’t trust him, but because he was standing so close to her.  
Jeffrey said: “there’s nothing of Ethan in there, is it?”  
She winced as his name was spoken out loud, trying not to look away because she could tell Jeffrey was gaging her reaction. It took her a minute before she realised he’d given her an opening.  
Hesitantly, she told him: “I didn’t put his name on the birth certificate.”  
He seemed to understand her. “They won’t hear it from me.”  
“Thanks”, she said, not sure if she was feeling relief or guilt. Another thing Jeffrey owed her. If he ever planned on settling her long-running debt there would be no way for her to repay him.  
He returned to the chair, and before he could bring up Ethan again she asked: “so how’s the bombing investigation going?”  
He rolled his eyes at that. “The endless depths of human stupidity never fail to surprise me, you know that?”  
“So you know who did it?”  
He nodded. “Three college kids studying something called Biofabrication. Apparently, they had an early class from a professor they hated, so they figured they’d make a small explosive to go off right before class began. With a timer, so they wouldn’t even have to get out of bed.”  
“A small explosive?”, Lena asked. “They blew up most of Jellicoe Hall…”  
“It gets better, trust me”, Jeffrey said. “Chemistry uses the metric system, but these geniuses got their quantities mixed up. Miraculously, the thing actually worked. It was just way bigger than they intended.”  
“Timer didn’t work?” She felt herself relax. This was what they did. It had been only a few days, but she missed these conversations.  
Jeffrey shook his head. “They installed a timer but because of the size of the bomb, it became unstable and it went off anyway. Thank God classes were over.”  
“No casualties?”  
“None. Just a bunch of very upset people. The Jellicoe was where most of the PhD students did their research, so that’s years of work gone up in smoke.” He shook his head. “Not to mention property damages. I doubt the perps’ insurance will cover that much stupidity.”  
“That’s not your problem.”  
“No”, he agreed. “But there’s a bunch of very unlucky parents out there.”  
“You think they’ll get prison time?”  
“It’s likely. Parents are pushing for probation but officially, it’s domestic terrorism.” Lena understood what he meant: even though the college was a private institution bombing it was a federal crime, and federal prosecutors were much less likely to be bribed or cajoled.  
“Did they have records?”, she asked. Jeffrey shook his head. “One has a DIU and another an unpaid parking ticket, but that’s it. The Feds are still looking into it, but I’d be very surprised if they found any ties to terrorist groups. They’re spoiled kids who resented having to get up in the morning.”  
“Spoiled kids who caused millions worth of damage, probably”, she said, and she glanced down at Hannah again, wondering what she would do if Hannah had been the one who’d screw up so colossally. She would have liked to think that she’d tell the kid to sort it out for herself, but two days had been enough to throw most of her preconceptions about parenting out of the window.  
The bundle in her arms began to stir again and before she could intervene, Hannah began to wail like a banshee.  
“I didn’t know they made that much noise”, Jeffrey said over the screaming, and she thought to herself: surely you’ve heard babies cry before?  
“She’s probably hungry”, Lena explained, suddenly feeling bone tired. She bounced Hannah up and down for a good minute, hoping Jeffrey would understand she wanted him to leave. Standing around in her bathrobe with him nearby was bad enough; no way was she going to whip out her tits with him in the room.  
It took him a minute, but then he turned beet red and said: “Right. I’ll just - “  
“I’ll see you later”, she said decidedly, and she watched him leave before sitting down in the chair by the bed and loosening her bathrobe. As Hannah latched on, she wondered if things would ever go back to normal again. 

Later that day, as she was in bed, watching TV, Hannah sleeping contentedly for once, Art barged back into the room.  
“Hey”, Lena said, but Art forewent any greeting.  
“Jane Doe”, she said. “She woke up.”


	14. Chapter 14

The girl might still have been asleep if not for the fact that her eyes were open. The breathing tube and the tape over her eyes had been removed, but everything else - the wires, the tubes, catheters and electrodes, the machines with their soft hisses and beeps and screens with erratically squiggly lines - was still in place. The girl stared at the ceiling, pretending not to listen, but Lena could tell she was picking up every word. Her eyes were too focused. She wasn’t confused; she knew exactly where she was, and who she was.  
Yet she wasn’t speaking. She hadn’t asked anything, hadn’t said anything. “Leave her be”, Dos Santos had said, but this time Art had been less obliging.  
“I need to find out who she is”, she’d pointed out. “And I need you to let me do my job.” The threat had been implicit; they both knew she could make things difficult for Dos Santos if she wanted to. Unfair, perhaps, but Lena knew where she was coming from. They needed answers.  
Lena wasn’t sure why Art had asked her to come, but she was glad to get out of the room for a minute. She felt beyond tired after the short walk and elevator ride and terribly guilty at leaving Hannah behind in the baby room, but at the same time it felt purposeful. It felt like the old her.  
Together they stood in the room, and Art asked: “You want to give it a go or shall I?”  
Lena thought it over for a while. Normally she would have loved an opportunity like this but on the other hand, she wasn’t exactly good at comforting people. And she felt vulnerable, too, tense and raw, like an open wound. The girl would see right through her.  
“You talk to her”, she said. “I’ll observe.”  
“Alright”, Art said, and she sat down next to the bed. The girl didn’t move a muscle.  
“Hey”, Art started. “I’d like to talk to you for a while. My name is Artemis. Can you tell me your name?”  
The girl blinked, but said nothing. Art tried again: “We’d like to know who we are so we can contact your family.”  
Lena thought she saw a small twitch at the corners of the girl’s mouth, but it was brief and subtle and might have been entirely inside her head.  
“Is there something you’re afraid of?”, Art asked. “You’re safe in here. You’re in a hospital, in Atlanta. You’re in a secure ward. That means nobody is going to get in without permission.” She paused for effect. “We know someone hurt you. We’d very much like to catch them so they don’t hurt anyone else, but we can’t do that without you.”  
Still nothing. The girl remained still, staring ahead stoically. Art tried: “Do you speak English?”  
Again, a brief flash shot across the girl’s face, this time something akin to anger or annoyance, Lena thought. Whoever she might be and wherever she was from, language wasn’t the problem.  
“I know you might be feeling embarrassed”, Art said. “That’s okay, but you really shouldn’t be. There’s nothing we haven’t seen or heard yet.”  
Lena could almost see the girl think to herself, I highly doubt that. Art sighed.  
“Alright. Obviously you don’t want to talk right now. That’s okay. I’m going to leave my card on your nightstand, alright? If you want to talk, call me, or ask one of the staff. They’ll know where to reach us.” She got up. “My name is Artemis Colvin, can you remember that? And that’s detective Lena Adams.”  
That finally got a response. The girl looked surprised. More than that, she looked stunned, and tried to lift her head to get another look. Lena swallowed. Art frowned, then looked pissed.  
“We’re going to leave now”, she told the girl, and on her way out she grabbed Lena by the arm a little too vehemently.  
“What the hell?”, she said as soon as they were outside. Lena didn’t know what to tell her.  
“She knows you.”  
“Well, I don’t know her.”  
Art crossed her arms over her chest. “That does not make any sense.”  
Lena could only agree.  
“Don’t you think I know how this looks?”, she said. “Do you really think I would have gone in there if - “  
“She didn’t recognise your face, she recognised your name”, Art said. “Lena, I don’t think you kidnapped her but obviously, whoever did knows who you are.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket. “None of this makes any sense.”  
“No”, Lena said flatly. Art ignored her as she began to scroll through the menu.  
“Go back to your room”, she said. “We’ll talk later.

Lena silently fumed as she made her way back. Go to your room. As if she was a misbehaving child.  
It wasn’t just Art’s response that bothered her, though; she felt betrayed by it, even moreso because she had no idea how she was involved. Her bag had been there. The girl knew her. The people who’d hurt her obviously did, too. Yet Lena herself had no idea who, why or how she was involved, except that she apparently was. Worse, Art might have said she didn’t believe Lena was responsible for any of this, but she was lying. She had to be. Lena would, if she’d been in her shoes.  
She lay down on the bed, her body worn out, her mind still racing, and she glanced at Hannah, asleep in her plastic basket with the fluorescent light overhead, basking her in an eerie green glow. Suddenly, Lena’s mind conjured up a vision of herself behind bars, Hannah being taken away by social services to be placed God only knew where. She swallowed hard. Surely she was overreacting.  
Wasn’t she?  
She almost missed the knock on the door. When she looked up she saw the doctor with the strange green eyes, standing in the doorway, looking as annoyed as the first time she’d seen him.  
She was in no mood for pleasantries, so she went with a curt: “what now?”  
He eyed her with evident distaste, but still he said: “I hope I’m not bothering you.”  
“The fuck do you think?” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him defiantly, realising that she was being unreasonable but not caring very much. Not with this guy.  
He cleared his throat. “I’d like a blood sample.”  
“What the hell for?”  
“You covered me in blood”, he said, his tone slipping. “I’d rather not get HIV.”  
“I don’t have HIV”, Lena told him. He shrugged. “Sure. Nobody ever does.” He seemed to swallow something back, then, with a strained voice, told her: “look, either you get tested or I get prophylactic treatment, which sucks, so I’m going out on a limb here and asking you to be a decent person.”  
“You’re not supposed to do that, are you?”, she asked. His shrug told her all she needed to know, but since it had been at least 24 hours since anyone had poked her with a needle she couldn’t really think of a reason to say no. Magnanimously, she rolled up the sleeve of her sweatshirt. She might have felt some trepidation earlier, but she’d been tested for a whole slew of STDs at doctor Pendergast’s insistence. Lena wasn’t sure whether she’d believed her when she’d said that it was protocol.  
“Thanks”, he said grudgingly, and he dug into his tray for tubes, alcohol wipes, a tourniquet and a needle. She looked away as he inserted it into her arm, and winced even though he was a pretty good stick and she barely felt it. He didn’t dignify it with a response.  
“How’s the girl?”, he asked, then, after a glance at the basinet, “the Jane Doe, I mean.”  
“She woke up”, Lena told him. Listlessly, he replied: “did she now.”  
“She’s not saying anything.”  
“Of course not. Would you?”  
“No. I wouldn’t”, she said, then, perhaps to shock him, she added: “I didn’t, when it was me.”  
He shrugged, putting the vials of blood back in his pocket. “Me either. When it was me.” He gave her a curt wave, and left the room. Lena stared after him for a few seconds, then resignedly changed back into her bathrobe.

She must have fallen asleep after Hannah’s feeding; it was unusually quiet on the maternity ward that day, and the morning and afternoon had left her feeling drained and down. The excursion to Jane Doe’s room had taken its toll. She knew any doctor or nurse here would have told her that this was normal - what did she expect, after losing so much blood - but it still felt like betrayal, like one more thing her body was telling her she could not do. She found herself looking at the clock to see if it was time to go to sleep yet; eventually, before dinner, she nodded off.  
She awoke to the sound of unfamiliar voices arguing. They were keeping their voices down to urgent whispers and low growls, but immediately she could tell something was off. For one, no men worked on the maternity ward. The cleaners, the nurses, the OBGYNs, even the technicians she’d seen on the notice board were all women. She felt her neck hair stand up and remained still, hoping they hadn’t noticed she’d woken up. Heart pounding she opened her eyes to a sliver, peering at the bassinet, but Hannah was still there, squirming uncomfortably, at that point where her brain was still trying to decide whether she was going to wake up or not. Lena quietly prayed she wouldn’t and tried to focus on what the men were saying.  
“Dude, this isn’t her”, one of the men said. Quickly, she shut her eyes again.  
“I checked the system. The system said - “  
“I know what it said! What are you, fucking blind?”  
She risked another glance. They were wearing maintenance uniforms, she noticed. She couldn’t see their faces. Heart still pounding, she closed her eyes again, wishing she’d have brought her gun with her.  
“Holy shit”, one of the guys said. “You think this is a trap?”  
“Of course not, numbnuts. They’d have been in here in seconds. Besides, you really think they’d put us in a room with a fucking baby?”  
“Could be a doll”, the first guy said. He sounded unconvinced himself. “I mean - “  
“It’s moving”, the second guy said. “Or did you think it was a robot? And anyway, are you blind? That ain’t her.”  
“Well, shit”, the first guy said again. “So where - “  
“Fuck, let’s check upstairs. After we were done with her - “  
“- The rest of them were - “  
“Whatever. Move it.” She heard their footsteps fade away, but nevertheless, she counted to five before opening her eyes. Hannah was still beside her, though she appeared to have fallen asleep again.  
Quietly, Lena slipped out of bed and peered around the corner into the hallway. The men were nowhere to be seen. She swore, grabbed her phone, then rushed over to the nurse’s station.  
“You need to call security”, she told the nurse. “Tell them to get their asses over to the ICU now.”  
The nurse, who’d been filling out a chart, put her pen down like she had all the time in the world and said: “Miss Adams? Where’s your baby?”  
“In the room”, Lena said, wishing she’d get a move on. “Keep an eye on her. You need to -”  
“Everything’s fine, isn’t it?”, the nurse said. “It’s a secure ward, nobody can come in unless - “  
Lena suddenly realised the woman thought she was having a mental breakdown, and a surge of frustration ran through her. “For fuck’s sake! Call security, tell them two unidentified men are on their way up to see Jane Doe - ”  
“Miss Adams”, the nurse said, still patient but less friendly now, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s best if - “  
Lena turned on her heels and made a beeline for the doors, managing to slip through them just as the nurse hit the panic button that locked them. She ignored the angry shout that followed her, walking, then running down the hallway, the adrenaline sending just enough power through her body to ignore how badly her legs were shaking. She made it around the corner, spotted an open elevator and slipped into it before the nurse could stop her. Forcefully, she punched the buttons to make it go faster, pulling her phone out of her pocket with the other hand, scrolling through the call menu until she got to Art’s number.  
Art picked up on the second ring just as the lift began its ascent.  
“Lena”, she said, “Something wrong?”  
“Are you still at the hospital?”  
“I’m on my way in. I should be there in a couple of minutes. Why?”  
Lena winced then, for once, tried telling the truth. “Don’t ask me why or how, but two guys who were up to no good were in my hospital room about a minute ago, looking for Jane Doe, and they’re going to the ICU now. I need you to call hospital security and 911.”  
“Got it”, Art said, and she hung up. Lena wasn’t sure whether to be thankful or frustrated.  
The elevator crept up at an intolerably slow pace. She stared at the screen above the door that indicated the floors. Third. Fourth. Fifth. On the sixth, it stopped and she squirmed her way through the half open doors, past a loudly protesting woman evidently astonished by her rudeness. The nurse’s station was around the corner, down the hallway, and just as she reached it her knees began to shake again. The trek had exhausted her and her voice sounded feeble and hoarse when she told the charge nurse: “you need to call security, tell them to lock the exits. Have them stay with the Jane Doe in room 601, then call 911, tell them - “  
“Are you alright?”, the nurse interjected, and Lena wondered if anyone was going to take her seriously at all.  
“I’m fine”, she said. “Please call - “  
“Alright, calm down. Tell me what happened.” She didn’t like the way the nurse was looking at her; as if she was a toddler who’d lost her mother. She took a deep breath, trying to steady her weak knees and gasping breath. “There were two guys in my room, they were wearing maintenance uniforms - “  
“That’s nothing to worry about”, the nurse said. “They probably just ended up in the wrong room.”  
“No”, Lena said, feeling panic. “They weren’t - “  
“Which floor are you from, miss?” The nurse picked up the phone. “Can I see your ID bracelet, please?”  
“Dammit, just call security!”, Lena snapped. Behind her, someone said: “What the hell is going on here? Detective Adams, what....”  
She wheeled around. Doctor Dos Santos stood behind her, the same pissed-off expression on his face as always. She told him: “There were two guys in my room looking for Jane Doe. You need to get security up here.”  
She hadn’t thought very highly of him until now, but at least he seemed willing to believe her.  
“Call security”, he barked at the desk nurse, then wheeled around and took a sprint to the girl’s room. Lena tried to keep up best she could, but when she heard him swear she knew enough. He called over at the nurses’ station: “Call security NOW, tell them to implement lockdown procedures.” She made it to the room and saw the empty bed. It felt like a gut punch. She saw the broken wires, the bunched-up sheets, the small bloodstain on the pillow. The IV was dripping onto the floor, leaving a small puddle down by the nightstand. The tumbler on top of it had fallen down, too. It was a mess, and Lena had to suppress the sudden urge to cry.  
She turned around, went back into the hallway. They couldn’t have gone far. She stretched out her hand to close the door when she heard the elevator doors open. When she turned her head, she saw the two men, otherwise unremarkable in their grey coveralls, standing casually beside the elevator.  
A lot happened at once. The doors opened and Art stepped out just as Lena’s eyes locked with the guy on the right. She saw the realisation of who she was dawn on his face. He knew he’d been caught in the act. She yelled “Art, get him!”. Art’s hand went up to her holster. She was quick, but so was the other guy, and there were two of them; just as she pulled the trigger, the guy on the right did, too. Dos Santos ducked behind the nurses station as the shots were fired and made a grab for Lena; she felt his fingers brush her leg just as she stepped forward, knowing only that the other guy had to be stopped. The first guy was on the floor, a small round hole square between the eyes; Art was slumped against the wall, dazed but still breathing. The other guy, squarely focused on her, raised his gun and Lena did the only thing she could think of: she sped up and crashed into him at full force. He was taller than her, easily twice as heavy, but he wasn’t looking in her direction and she had the element of surprise. He was thrown off balance long enough for Lena to get out of his reach. His fingers grappled at the bathrobe she was wearing, then he slipped as she brushed by. His gun banged against the wall; a stray bullet shot out and shattered the glass of the swing doors to the left hallway. Behind the nurse’s station someone shrieked. It bought her another precious second; she backed off again, thinking she ought to make a beeline for the stairwell, away from the people in the ICU, but then her foot made contact with something warm and heavy. The first guy. For a moment, she thought she was going to make it, but then she lost her balance and slammed into his body. When she looked up, the second guy was staring at her, openly laughing at her, and then she knew she was going to die. She closed her eyes and pictured Hannah, who would be an orphan, like her. All her worries had been for nothing. Hannah was not going to hate her. Hannah wasn’t even going to know her.  
And then her hand contacted the gun. The gun the first guy had been shooting. It was partially concealed by the bulk of his torso, but her hand, looking for support, wrapped itself around the handle with surprising ease. The second guy stopped laughing and aimed. Lena stopped thinking, and did the same.  
It wasn’t her best shot; not even close, but it was enough. He slammed into the wall, then cursed loudly as he fell down. She’d gotten him twice; in the shoulder and the knee. She hadn’t planned it, but it was perfect - his knee forced him down on the ground and the bullet in his shoulder ensured he no longer had control of his hand. His weapon bounced on the floor, firing off another random shot that went into the first guy’s body with a dull thunk that would have been comical if not for the fact that it missed her by a few inches. She rushed to her feet, keeping the gun trained at the second guy.  
“Motherfucker”, the man said, then, at Lena, “you fucking bitch.”  
“Yes”, she agreed, kicking the gun away from him, praying it wasn’t going to go off again.  
“We should’ve gotten you when you were asleep.”  
She could only agree. “Probably.” She used her heel to press down on his injured knee; she wasn’t wearing shoes, but it was enough. He screeched, and she told him to shut up.  
“Where’s the girl?”  
“Fuck off!”, he told her, so she pressed her foot down harder. He yelled. “Fucking bitch!”  
“You said that already. Where is she?”  
“Get the f - “  
“You want me to put a bullet in your other knee?”  
“Lady”, he panted, “who the fuck are you?”  
Behind her, she heard heavy footsteps, and for a second she thought the first guy had come back to life, but it was Art. She put a hand on Lena’s shoulder and rasped: “I don’t think they have her.”  
“Then where the hell - “  
The doors to the stairwell flew open and the hallway was invaded by cops and hospital security, all shouting the same thing but in different words, so it came out as a garbled mess. She got the gist of it, though. Finally, she thought to herself as she reluctantly put down the gun and raised her hands as Art identified herself, then Lena, as law enforcement, then told them the girl was still missing. The second guy had stopped swearing and was now throwing dirty looks and clutching his knee.  
“You need to sit down”, Dos Santos told Art. There were fragments of glass on his coat; with one hand, he pulled up Lena’s bathrobe, and Lena suddenly realised her left breast had been hanging out for all the world to see. With a furious gesture, she pulled it shut and tied the belt so tightly that her stomach clenched in protest. Art, her face pale and sweaty, sat down in a chair.  
“It’s just a flesh wound”, she said, but Dos Santos told her: “I’ll be the judge of that.”  
“I don’t doubt it”, Art muttered to herself, but she let him take off her jacket and examine the injury.  
Behind her the cops were barking orders, security guards were talking on their portaphones. The second guy was still groaning, though he was no longer clutching his knee; his hands had been cuffed behind his back. She realised Art had been right: they hadn’t taken the girl. They never made it to her room. The girl must have slipped out on her own.  
Lena knew she couldn’t have gone far. She’d been in terrible shape the last time Lena had seen her and her leg had been badly broken. She scanned the hallway. The doors to the patient rooms were all glass - privacy wasn’t exactly a point of importance in the ICU - but the door to what she presumed was a storage closet, right across from the girl’s room, was closed. Instinctively she opened it and entered the tiny space before anyone noticed her.  
It was a typical storage closet, with the only light coming in from underneath the door. Shelves circled the walls, loaded with boxes and stacks of neatly folded towels and gowns. The girl was on the floor, curled up below the bottom shelf, her oversized hospital gown creased and wet in places. Near the collar Lena could see a large blood stain but otherwise she could see no new injuries. There was sweat on her forehead even though she lay perfectly still, eyes wide with fear. Lena shut the door and sat down across from the girl.  
Why was it that she could tackle a man twice her size and shoot him, practically without batting an eyelid, while talking to the girl, who had been through very much the same thing as she had, was impossible to her? She felt the urge to protect the girl, now stronger than ever - hormones? Who knew - but at the same time she had no idea what to say.  
“Hey”, she tried. “It’s okay. Everything’s alright. Those men, they’re gone.” The girl blinked, perhaps out of understanding or maybe just because her lizard brain had kicked in and she wasn’t listening. It was impossible to tell.  
She let her mind wander back to when it had happened to her, wondering what she would have wanted if it had been her. She didn’t often do so - too depressing - but the adrenaline that was still flowing through her veins was dulling the memory into something vaguely unpleasant rather than actively traumatising. She asked: “do you want to stay here for a few minutes? I think that’s probably okay.”  
The girl blinked again, then nodded almost imperceptibly.  
“It’s a little crowded out there”, Lena said. “Lots of police officers. Is it okay if I text my friend that you’re in here, tell her to keep them out?”  
The girl might have nodded, or she might not have. Lena pulled her phone out of her pocket and typed, as quickly as she could, SHES IN STORAGE RM DONT COME IN, hoping Art would be checking her phone. She could feel the girls’ eyes on her now, tracing her every move. She turned the phone to face the girl, showing her the text. The girl’s eyes focused for a millisecond and Lena wasn’t sure whether she’d read it, but she tucked the phone back into the pocket of her bathrobe anyway.  
“Aren’t you cold?”, she asked the girl; though the room felt hot and stifling to her, the girl had goosebumps on her skin. Slowly, Lena pulled down a towel from one of the shelves and, keeping her movements to a minimum, she tucked it around the girl’s shoulders, trying not to look at the girl’s left leg, which had metal rods sticking out of it. The break had been bad enough to warrant a series of intimidating spikes, threaded together on the outside by a metal bar. It looked painful and daunting.  
“There”, she said, sitting down again and keeping her distance. “I hope this helps. Do you want me to get you another one?”  
No response, so Lena tried another route. “My name is Lena. We met before, do you remember that?”  
The girl blinked.  
“I’m a detective. I live in the town where we found you. Are you from around there?”  
Something akin to confusion seemed to float over the girl’s face, but she remained quiet. Lena hadn’t thought she’d speak up, but she had to try. “Where are you from?”  
Outside, she heard a commotion; angry voices rising, then fading away. The girl shrunk back, her eyes darting over to the door.  
“It’s alright”, Lena said. “One of those men died. The other one is being taken into custody now. They’ll be gone in a few seconds.”  
It didn’t seem to make the girl feel any more at ease. And why should it? Lena remembered the first guy saying something about others when he thought she was asleep. She tried: “Were you alone when they took you? Was someone with you, maybe?”  
That, at least, made an impact; suddenly the girl began to cry. She was trying not to, forcing back sobs and blinking furiously to keep the tears out of her eyes, but it was hopeless.  
“It’s okay”, Lena said, reaching over to the girl’s hand, but the girl pulled it away. Lena said: “if anyone was with you, you need to tell us so we can look for them.”  
The girl shook her head, and Lena saw what she hadn’t seen before. The girl was angry; she was furious. Lena pressed: “if you were the one who’d been left behind, you’d want someone to tell the police, right?” She paused, let the words sink in, then added: “even if it’s too late, if there’s nothing we can do for them, you should tell someone. We’ll keep you safe.”  
It wasn’t the brightest thing to say after two men had tried to kidnap her from her room less than half an hour before, and they both knew it. The girl scoffed, and in spite of everything Lena was relieved she seemed to have some fight left in her.  
“Were there any other people who took you, or just the two guys from today?”  
Still, no response. The girl was still crying, but Lena had the distinct impression that she’d be bitten or punched if she dared to move any closer. She tried a different approach. “Is the hospital treating you alright?”  
The girl was staring at her with outright hostility, and Lena gave up.  
“Look, you can glare at me all you want, but I’ve had that stare from scarier people than you and it didn’t work then. I can help, but you need to talk to me.”  
Strangely it seemed to mollify the girl somewhat, though she still didn’t say anything. Lena went on: “you knew who I was even before we met. How?”  
No answer, but no denial either. The girl kept looking at her with a mix of annoyance and curiosity.  
“Thing is”, Lena said, “my boss thinks I’m involved in all of this. You know who I am. Those guys? They knew. So if you don’t want to help yourself, then at least do me a favour and tell me how or why y’all know me. I had a baby three days ago, I have enough on my mind.”  
She was met with silence.  
There was a knock on the door; when it opened, Dos Santos came into the room and closed the door behind him, sitting down next to Lena.  
“Hi”, he said cautiously. “Those men are gone. Police took them downstairs. You wanna come out?”  
“I think she likes it in here”, Lena said; to her relief, Dos Santos replied with: “alright, but only for a few minutes, then we have to get you back to your room.”  
The girl closed her eyes, and Lena asked: “How’s agent Colvin?”  
“She’ll be fine”, Dos Santos told her. “They took her down to the ER. She might need exploratory keyhole surgery but my guess is they’ll stitch her up, keep her for observation tonight and release her tomorrow.”  
“Good”, Lena said, feeling more relieved than she had any right to be.  
“You should go back to your room”, Dos Santos said. “I’ll take over from here.” She shook her head. “I’ll wait a little longer.”  
They sat in silence for a bit, until Dos Santos said: “how’s the baby?”  
She wasn’t sure if he actually cared or if he was just making small talk to distract the girl, but either way, she went with it. “She’s fine. She’s hungry all the time.”  
“That’s what they do”, he replied quietly. “It usually gets better after a few weeks.”  
“Yeah”, Lena said darkly, “if you’re lucky.” She hadn’t thought that far ahead; the thought of taking Hannah home alone was something she kept pushing ahead, let alone how the hell she was going to manage if Hannah decided sleeping wasn’t for her.  
Dos Santos asked: “What did you name her?”  
“Hannah”, she said. It rolled off the tongue easily by now. Dos Santos actually smiled and told her: “my youngest daughter is named Hannah.”  
“How old is she?”  
“She’ll be nine next month.”  
Nine, Lena thought. Another thing she was having trouble accepting was that her baby was one day going to grow up. Not that she objected to it, but she seemed so small now, Lena couldn’t imagine she was ever going to be nine, or twelve, or fifteen, like the girl in front of her.  
The girl closed her eyes, and Lena noticed she’d begun to shiver. She seemed to tense up. Dos Santos told her: “Your pain medication is wearing off. It’s time to get back to your room.” He didn’t get up, not immediately, and Lena understood he was giving the girl a little time to get used to the thought that he was going to get her out of the storage closet against her wishes. Eventually, he got up, so Lena got to her feet, too, staying out of the way as Dos Santos put his hands on the girl’s arms and pulled her out, then lifted her and carried her into the hallway. He was a big guy, not just tall but broad-shouldered, and he made the girl seem impossibly tiny. The girl struggled for a bit, but quickly gave up; when Dos Santos put her down on the bed that had been readied and put in the hallway, she curled up onto her side and closed her eyes, crying quietly. Lena stayed behind as Dos Santos wheeled her away, saying something she didn’t catch. She wondered how the girl felt about him. As brusque as he had been to her before he seemed like a good doctor. She could have used someone like him herself back in the day.  
Her head rushed and she hoped she wasn’t going to pass out. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off she felt the exhaustion return. It rushed up to her so suddenly and so intensely that she wondered how the hell she was going to make it back to her room. She checked the clock. She’d been gone for two hours. Hannah would be hungry. She’d failed her daughter. Again.  
Fighting the sudden urge to cry, she walked down the hallway, heavily leaning on the railings that were lining the hallway, until her legs finally gave out; she sat down, too tired to care. It took them a while to notice her and then, of course, it was the last person she wanted to see.  
“Your test came back negative.”  
The ER doctor was standing in front of her; she looked up to him, briefly, before she decided both of their lives would be better if she said nothing in return.  
“You need a hand?”  
“Nah”, she said, “I enjoy sitting on the floor in my bathrobe. It’s super comfortable. Warm, too.”  
“I’ll get you a wheelchair”, he told her, and she wanted to tell him not to bother but it seemed too much effort, so she stayed put, staring at her feet until he came back.  
“Rough day?”, he asked as he helped her up.  
“What do you care?”, she said listlessly as she sat down in the wheelchair. “What are you doing up here anyway?”  
“Dropping off a patient”, he said. “Died in the elevator.”  
“I’m sorry”, she said half-heartedly. He told her: “I wouldn’t feel too bad. I try not to make snap judgements but the guy was brought in in cuffs, high on meth, and he was covered in swastikas and pictures of saluting SS soldiers.”  
She felt her pulse quicken. Trying to level her voice, she asked: “what was his name?”  
“Why, you know lots of neonazis?” He snorted. “Philip Grass, I think. Like the composer, but… Grass. Y’know.”  
She didn’t know. It wasn’t Ethan, that was all that mattered. She wasn’t sure whether it was good news or not.  
“I heard you shot two guys”, the doctor said, and she asked: “so what, you’re looking for hospital gossip?”  
“Pretty much”, he said. “You’re all anyone’s talking about in the staff lounge. The lactating topless cop who shot two idiot criminals.”  
“It wasn’t that entertaining, and it was only one guy.”  
“I bet. Pretty bad-ass though. Is it true that he didn’t shoot you because he was too busy staring at your tits?”  
“I really don’t want to talk about it”, Lena said. She didn’t want to think about it, either. The doctor laughed.  
“You’d expect better from a professional. Girl’s okay, right?”  
“Not really”, she snapped. “What did you think?”  
“I meant - “  
“I know what you meant.” Angrily, she crossed her arms. She was fed up with people thinking you were fine just because you weren’t immediately in harm’s way. Unless he’d lied to her the day before he should know better.  
“Christ, sorry I asked”, the doctor said. Lena didn’t bother replying as he wheeled her into the elevator and pressed the button to the second floor. After a few seconds of silence, he asked: “so how many days since you gave birth?”  
“Three. Why?”  
He shrugged. “Well, that explains that.”  
“Explains what?!” The elevator zoomed down. She couldn’t wait for it to open again.  
“Most women experience baby blues between three and five days after giving birth”, he said. “It’s why you’re in such a foul mood. Nothing but hormones.”  
“Telling a woman it’s her hormones is a good way to get punched in the face”, she bit at him. “I’ve already shot one guy today.”  
“You don’t have a gun on you”, he reminded her as the doors opened. “C’mon. You look like death warmed up.”  
“Oh, thanks”, she snapped. He didn’t reply but wheeled her out. For once he kept his mouth shut until they got to the nurse’s station. The nurse from that afternoon had been replaced by a stocky Latina whom Lena didn’t recognise.  
“There you are!”, the nurse exclaimed, rushing up from behind her desk. “Are you alright?”  
No, Lena wanted to tell her, but instead she said: “I’m fine, just a bit tired.”  
“I’ll get her back to her room”, the nurse said, shoving the doctor out of the way. He said: “well, see you around I guess.” Lena told him: “go away.” She didn’t look back at him as he stayed behind and the nurse wheeled her into her room.  
“There”, the nurse said. “Let’s get you back to bed and then you can give Hannah her feeding. Do you want us to keep her in the baby room tonight so you can get some rest? You look like you need a break.”  
The kind tone of her voice almost made Lena start crying, so she quietly shook her head and hoped the nurse wouldn’t take it personally. Wordlessly, she slid in between the sheets. The fact that someone had made her bed for her didn’t help matters.  
“They sent your dinner back to the kitchen, I think, but I’ll see what I can find”, the nurse said, leaning in to check Lena’s temperature. Lena said: “I’m not really hungry.”  
“I know”, the nurse told her, putting the thermometer away. “It’s normal to lose your appetite for a while after you give birth. You have to take good care of yourself, though.” Lena was too tired to argue the point, so she nodded, knowing she wouldn’t get a single bite down her throat.  
Later, when the nurse had brought Hannah around, she wondered why she was so upset. She’d shot - and killed - guys before and it hadn’t bothered her nearly as much as it probably should have. It wasn’t that. Was it the girl? She’d been unharmed - that day, at least - but she’d been terrified and upset, and Lena had known the feeling all too well. Did she identify with the girl too much? Nobody had ever told her she was too emphatic. The opposite, more likely. Was it because she’d left Hannah to her own devices? That was hardly the case. She’d only been gone for a few hours, at most, and Hannah had been well cared for. She stared at her daughter’s face, fast asleep, breathing the heavy breath of easy sleep. She didn’t look particularly perturbed to have been separated by her mother. Perhaps that should have been her clue.  
She ignored the meal that the nurses had put in front of her and switched on the TV, hoping the distraction would help, but knowing that it wouldn’t.


	15. Chapter 15

“Hey!”, Art called out before she’d even entered the room. “I was wondering what was keeping you. They didn’t keep you too long going over the details, right?”  
“Uh”, Lena said, “no.” Someone had stopped by in her hospital room that evening but she’d pretended to be asleep. They’d left a voicemail message that, she supposed, she was going to have to answer soon. It hadn’t really been on her mind; that morning, after breakfast, the nurse had told her excitedly that Hannah was ready to go home. Lena had smiled politely, but her heart had sunk. She wasn’t ready. She pushed it from her mind. First things first; she wanted to know how Art was faring.  
But Art turned out to be well enough; she was sitting up in bed, dressed in tights and a woollen dress, eating toast when Lena came in.  
“Maternity wear”, she explained to Lena, though Lena hadn’t asked. “It’s loose-fitting. Doesn’t hurt as much. I’m fine, they didn’t hit anything important. They’re discharging me as soon as the surgeon comes by.” She seemed almost manically cheerful, and Lena knew she was keeping something major back. She asked: “So what happened?”  
“I got a call about half an hour ago”, Art said, a little too giddy. “Interpol. They think they know who she is.”  
“So who is she?”  
Art shrugged. “It’s weird. They wouldn’t say.”

The Interpol agent was meeting them in a meeting room on the seventh floor. As Lena stood beside Art in the elevator she saw her tucking away the plastic hospital ID bracelet into her sleeve.  
“These guys, they can smell weakness”, Art said. “God, I hate Interpol agents. They’re all snooty British boarding school guys. Or snooty South-African cricked players, or snooty minor Swedish nobility.”  
“I’ve never met one”, Lena said. Art shrugged. “Why would you? They barely deign to talk to me, let alone a commoner like you.”  
Lena opened her mouth to say something mean in return, until she realised that Art was kidding.  
“Don’t say that. We have indoor plumbing now.”  
“I hear the railroad might be coming to your town any day.”  
“Soon as the war of Northern Aggression is over.” She allowed for a smile.  
“Listen”, Art said as the doors opened, “they’re going to want to talk to her. I don’t want them to go in alone. These guys have all the tact and subtlety of a sledgehammer.”  
“You want me to - “  
“We’ll see how it goes”, Art said, and she pressed her hand against her side with a pained look on her face. “I should probably be lying down, to be honest. I’d hate to pass out during an interview.”  
Lena shrugged. “I’ll do it.”  
“Thanks”, Art said. She looked pale. Lena wondered if she should ask about the baby. She tried: “are you sure you’re okay?”  
“Remember when I promised you I wouldn’t ask you that?”  
“You did it anyway.”  
“Because you were giving birth in the hallway.”  
“I didn’t - “  
“Well, you get the point.” They made their way down the hallway, to meeting room 06. The door was open; the first thing Lena saw when she walked in were the ubiquitous small white porcelain coffee cups and stainless steel pitchers that seemed to be mandatory for any type of meeting. Next to it, indiscreetly tipping the contents of one of these cups into a nearby bin, was a well-dressed man whom she immediately pegged as the Interpol agent, though she wasn’t sure why. All the law enforcement personnel she knew tended to exude power and dominance, or try to anyway, and they’d walk like they had brass balls between their legs. Even Art, who seemed to be all about complacency, could put on a threatening face if she wanted to. This one, though, radiated a different kind of self-confidence, like there wasn’t a single place on earth where he wouldn’t feel at ease. He was good looking, Lena noticed, but in an off-putting way, pretty but slightly effeminate, like a freshman frat boy, with delicate facial features and a casual hunch to his shoulders. His slim-cut plaid suit looked expensive and exotic to her eyes.  
“You must be agent Hoffman”, Art said. “Nice to meet you. I’m Special Agent Colvin.”  
“Then you must be Agent Adams”, the man said. Neither of them bothered to correct him. He gestured at the table and said: “shall we sit down?” He didn’t wait for them to follow but put himself at the head of the table.  
“I’m not sure why you wanted to meet with us”, Art said. “You could have e-mailed me the file.”  
“There was a... glitch”, Hoffman said. “We felt it would be best to talk it out in person.” His accent, which she’d imagined would be in perfect Queen’s English, came easy but slightly awkwardly, and it had undertones of something she found hard to place. Art said: “So why did they feel they needed to send you in from the - what was it, Stockholm office?”  
“Berlin, actually”, Hoffman said with a small smirk. He was enjoying this a little bit too much. “Your Jane Doe, she’s from Thuringia. Erfurt, to be precise.”  
Lena had no idea where that was, but she presumed it was in Germany. Art and Tex had been right, sort of.  
“She’s been missing for approximately three weeks now, except nobody’d noticed. She and her family were supposed to be on holiday in Florida.”  
They both sat up straight in their seats. Hoffman continued at a leisurely pace: “as the family tells it, they planned to fly out to Atlanta and drive down to Miami. It was cheaper that way.”  
“Did they know how far that is?”, Art asked. He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. They never made it to their destination. We confirmed with the airline, they were on the inbound flight but not the outbound one. Never made it to their hotel in Miami either and their rental vehicle is missing. Company never reported it until last week.”  
“They never do”, Lena said. Rental companies made too much from charging exorbitant late fees, she knew, and it wasn’t uncommon for people to extend their stay without telling anyone.  
“Anyway”, Hoffman said, “we’re talking about a family of four here, with three still missing. Father Peter, aged thirty-six, mother Ulrike, aged thirty-four, youngest daughter Julia, aged twelve.” There was an iPad on the table between them; he reached over and pulled up a file showing a family of four, smiling happily into the camera. It was an old picture; the youngest daughter, wearing pigtails and a cheeky grin, couldn’t have been a day over ten. It struck Lena just how normal they looked. The youngest daughter took after her father; they shared the same fizzy, dull blonde hair, though the girl had attempted to tame hers somewhat. The other girl took after her mother. Her smile seemed forced and didn’t reach her dark eyes. Her face was fuller in the picture than it had been when Lena last saw her and her hair was longer, but she was undeniably the same person.  
“Agent Hoffman”, Art said, “I notice you haven’t told us her name yet.”  
“That’s where it gets confusing”, Hoffman said. He was enjoying himself a bit too much, Lena thought, and she would have loved to kick him under the table, like the high school student he looked like.  
“Her name”, Hoffman said, “is Lena Adams.”  
“Wait”, Art said, just as Lena piped up with “what?”  
Hoffman smirked. “What are the odds, right? Although, to be fair, technically she’s Lay-na and you’re Lee-na because - ”  
“So that backpack - “, Lena cut him off, and Art finished: “That wasn’t yours. It was hers. Generic black backpack with her name stencilled into it.”  
“Probably. Have you tried asking her?”  
“She’s not talking”, Art told him, her tone telling him to watch himself. He shrugged. “Well, you never know. We’ve contacted the extended family. Mother’s brother is flying in. Guy named Thomas Winter. Maybe he can get her to open her mouth.” He threw back the rest of his coffee. “Actually I’d like a word with her. Maybe she doesn’t speak English.”  
“Sure she does”, Lena said, feeling the urge to defend the girl from Hoffman. He said: “how can you tell if she hasn’t spoken to you?”  
“You’re not big on subtext, are you?”, Art asked him, which he ignored. Art said: “Agent Adams will be coming with you.”  
“I can handle a fourteen year old”, he said.  
“Somehow, I doubt that.”  
“You’re both still wearing hospital bracelets.” He looked at his watch. “I heard you killed one of those guys and shot the other one. What’s the subtext on that?”  
Art opened her mouth to tell him off, but Lena could tell she was off her game, so she said: “Dude, don’t be a dick”, which, if anything, finally did seem to hit home.  
“I’ll catch up with you guys later”, Art said as Lena and Hoffman left the room. Lena hoped she wasn’t stubborn enough to try and make it back to her bed on her own.  
“So”, Hoffman said as they headed towards the elevator. “You’re the one who found her?”  
“Yes”, Lena said curtly, and he repeated: “what are the odds of that happening?”  
“I don’t know. I’m not a statistician.”  
“Was she awake when you found her?”  
“No, she’d been knocked out. She was badly hurt.”  
“Her doctor told me she’d make a full recovery”, Hoffman said, and Lena, still not in the mood for pleasantries, scoffed and said: “not fucking likely.” He gave her the side eye at that, but said nothing until he got to the girl’s room and told her: “let me do the talking.”  
“You’re going to have to”, she told him. “My German’s not great.”  
The girl - Lena, she reminder herself, Ley-na, not Lee-na - was on her bed, though where she had been on her back before she was now curled up on her side. Most of the machines had gone and quite a few of the wires, though she was still hooked up to an IV, oxygen and a cardiac monitor. Lena held back as agent Hoffman walked up to her. She could follow the hallo that he opened with, but the rest was lost on her. She understood the odd word. Vater. Mutter. Auto. Eltern, which she guessed meant parents. Otherwise the language seemed opaque and jumbled to her. She wondered what it would be like, to speak a foreign language so well. She’d taken Spanish in high school but the teacher had mostly been absent and, because she hadn’t done any classroom registration whatsoever, so had Lena. She regretted it now as she watched Hoffman talk to the girl. To her surprise the girl spoke back in soft but clipped tones. Caught out, embarrassed, pissed off. Lena was happy she was speaking again but uncomfortable too. One big mystery had not yet been solved: how had the girl known who she was?  
“Alright”, Hoffman said after a bit, and they left the room. He filled her in in the hallway. “ID checks out.”  
“What else did she tell you?”  
“She told me to fuck off and leave her alone”, agent Hoffman said, glancing back. “You two have matching names and matching personalities.”  
“And her parents?”, she said, for once not taking the bait. He shrugged. “She avoided the subject like the plague. Maybe she had something to do with it, maybe she just doesn’t want to talk about it. That’s for you guys to figure out. My work here is done.” He checked the ostentatious watch he wore. “I might just take an early flight. You can handle the family, right? They’re booking plane tickets now. I gave them Agent Colvin’s contact details.” He gave her a churlish wave. “I’m off. My office will make sure the files end up with you guys. Tell Agent Colvin I said hi. Don’t shoot anyone.”  
“I might be tempted”, she told him, but he ignored her as she walked away, and she wondered why every guy in Atlanta seemed to be an idiot, an asshole, or both.  
She wondered if anyone had told Jeffrey about the shooting yet. Probably not. He would have given her an angry call by now if they had.  
She waited until Hoffman had disappeared from the corridor before going back into the girl’s room. The girl hadn’t moved; she was still on her side, looking upset.  
“Are you alright?”, Lena asked, then caught herself and said: “I’m sorry. That guy was an asshole.”  
The girl shrugged, which was more than she had last time.  
“He went back home. He won’t bother you anymore.”  
“I’ve heard that before”, the girl snapped, and Lena was surprised by how fluent her English seemed. She’d expected it from an Interpol agent, but this was a high school girl.  
“I know”, Lena said. “Sorry about that.”  
The girl didn’t look at her when she spoke, but she asked: “did you shoot them?”  
“I shot one of them in the leg and shoulder. You remember agent Colvin? She got the other one.”  
“Where?”, the girl asked. “Where did she shoot him?”  
“In the head”, Lena said. She knew she should feel uncomfortable talking to the girl about this, but she knew the feeling all too well. You wanted them to suffer. You wanted them to be more than dead, to be obliterated.  
“You should have aimed at the head too”, the girl said. Her voice was little more than a croak, a whisper.  
“I wanted him to be able to talk”, Lena said. “Since you weren’t saying anything.”  
“It hurts, right? Getting shot on the knee?”  
“Yes”, Lena said. “It hurts a lot. Real difficult to fix, too.”  
“Good”, the girl said morosely. Lena tried: “where did you learn to speak English?”  
“In school”, she replied. “Where did you think I learned it? Just because you Americans…”  
Her anger seemed to peter out halfway through the sentence, and she didn’t bother to finish it.  
Lena tried again: “Do you remember my name?”  
“Of course”, the girl said. “It’s hard to forget.” She sighed. “You’re detective Lena Adams, you work for Grant County police force. You had a baby named Hannah three days ago. One time, you ended a hostage situation at the police station. You had a sister. She died.”  
Lena felt her jaw drop. The girl shrugged again.  
“How the hell do you know that?”, Lena wanted to know. The girl allowed for something that was almost, though not quite, a smile.  
“I googled you. Or rather, I googled myself and I got you instead.” She rolled her eyes. “We were in computer class and we were bored, so we googled ourselves and each other. Nobody got something interesting, mostly just stuff we’d handed in or left on message boards, or boring people with the same names. And I got you.” She sighed, and Lena knew the conversation was wearing her out. “It was annoying. They called me Heilige Lena for a week, because of the - “ she gestured at her hands, and Lena felt a pang of embarrassment at the idea that what had happened to her was now a middle school joke somewhere in Germany.  
“I thought you were interesting”, the girl said. Suddenly, she began to cry. “I liked that you were tough, that you were a detective. I read the news websites. And when my father told me we would drive through Georgia, I thought: maybe I’ll meet her. I thought, maybe we’d drive through Grant County and we’ll be driving too fast, and she’ll pull us over. Maybe we’ll stop to get gasoline for the car and someone steals something, and we’ll have to go into the police station to report it. It was stupid. Just a stupid fantasy. It wasn’t even on the way.” She took a deep breath with some difficulty to try and steady herself. “I didn’t actually think I’d - not like this, anyway. And then I wake up and I see that you’re the one who found me. I couldn’t believe it.”  
Lena wasn’t sure what to say at that. She wasn’t sure how she felt about being that easy to follow. She didn’t have a facebook page or a twitter account, and her Instagram was something she used only to follow others, who might have bad intentions. Sure, the Grant Observer and GrantDaily.com wrote about her sometimes, but tangentially, as ‘the arresting officer’ or ‘if you have any information about this crime, please contact’. She’d had no idea there was so much out there for a fourteen year old from Germany to find.  
Eventually, she said: “so why didn’t you tell us your name?”  
“I didn’t think you’d believe me”, the girl said.


	16. Chapter 16

The next morning Lena found herself in her hospital room, packing her bags, with Hannah sleeping contentedly in her car seat, swaddled in a dove grey blanket with soft white lining. Nan would be driving them home that afternoon. She’d be alone with Hannah for the first time. The idea was terrifying and enticing in equal measure. She felt so emotionally exhausted that it would be nice not to have to talk to anyone for a while. Nan had offered to sleep on the couch the first night. Lena hadn’t decided if she wanted to take her up on the offer.   
“The uncle is landing in about an hour”, Art said. She was lying on Lena’s hospital bed, her feet dangling over the edge, tired and obviously still in pain but reluctant to leave and go home. Lena recognised the feeling, the constant need to prove yourself. It was easy enough to condemn in other people, but they were both women in a man’s world, and it was different for them. Lying on Lena’s hospital bed and talking about the case at least allowed her to pretend she was working.   
“I’ll stay until he gets here”, Lena said. “After that, I’m heading home.”  
“Good for you”, Art said. Gingerly she touched her side. Lena gave up on being delicate and asked: “so the baby’s alright?”  
“Baby’s fine. Had the first ultrasound after they shot me. It’s still bouncing around in there.”  
“Good.” She folded a hoodie and stuffed it into a plastic bag. She still wasn’t great at pregnancy small-talk. Fortunately, Art was feeling loquacious.   
“I think I’m about seven weeks along now. That would mean a September baby. I’ve never given birth in September before.”  
“Neither have I”, Lena said dryly. Hannah sighed, and Art looked over at her. “She’s a quiet one, isn’t she?”  
“Not when she’s hungry.”  
“All I ever see her do is sleep.”  
“Isn’t that what babies are supposed to do?”  
“Oh, babies very rarely do what they’re supposed to do. Thomasin did nothing but cry for the first four months. I thought I was going to throw her down the stairs at some point. I know Merlin would sometimes just put her in her crib, shut the door and go to the other side of the house, so we wouldn’t hear her. It’s awful. Ivor had it too, though that got better after six weeks.”  
“Thomasin?”, Lena said. Art shrugged. “We’re Artemis and Merlin, like we were going to call our kids Jane and John.” She rolled over onto her side, so she could look at Lena. “There’s Freya, Thomasin, Juno, and at that point Merlin had lost all hope of having a son. Then we got Ivor, Jesper and Finnegan and I thought I was never going to have another daughter. And then we got Aoife.”  
“Those are names?”  
“I’m thinking Magali for a girl and Otis for a boy this time.”  
“Well, you do you”, Lena said dryly, which made Art laugh, then wince and clutch her side.   
“I’m never getting shot again”, she said. “It sucks.”  
“First time?”  
“Yeah.”  
“First time always sucks.” Lena threw another sweatshirt into a second plastic bag. Art laughed.   
“You’re a lot funnier than you give yourself credit for, you know that?”  
Lena shrugged. Nobody had ever called her funny before. The opposite was usually true. Most people thought she was humourless.   
They were quiet for a while, until Art said: “I googled the uncle. He’s some hotshot surgeon, apparently. Lives in a fucking mansion. His wife’s a renowned architect.”  
“Good for them.” Lena had had enough of people googling each other for a while. “Is he taking her in?”  
“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to him. He has a daughter of about the same age, though. That might be good.”  
Lena wondered how that could possibly help, but she didn’t say anything. Art said: “they live in England. She’d have to move there.”  
“Her English is fine”, Lena said. “She gets her… What are those words? At, in, on…”  
“Prepositions.”  
“She gets those mixed up sometimes, or she uses a word that’s just… off. But nothing major.”  
Art shrugged. “It’s not that easy. I’m pretty fluent in French, but if I have to carry a conversation the entire evening I’m exhausted after two hours. In a way, it’s actually easier if you don’t speak the language that well, because then at least people will talk a bit more slowly.”  
“Where’d you learn French?”  
“My mother’s French”, Art said, and Lena wasn’t sure why she was surprised by that. “My father used to be a diplomat. Met my mother in Paris. They moved back here, to DC, had me, and when I was twelve they split and she went back. I spent a couple of summers there, but it never really got off the ground. I went to boarding school. I liked it there.”  
“You and I had very different childhoods”, Lena said.   
“To be fair, that’s true for most people.” She sat up, still clutching her sides. “Living abroad is just… exhausting. Everything is foreign. It’s not just the language, but the customs, the details, the logistics. Hell, even going to the supermarket is tiring. Different products have different names.” She sighed. “It’s fun when you’re on vacation for a week or two, but not much beyond that. That kid is having a hard enough time as it is.”  
“She might not want to go back home”, Lena said, remembering how painful it had been to be at Nan’s house in the beginning, with Sibyl’s stuff still there, her clothes in the wardrobe, her books in the book case, even her scent, which had seemed to linger months after her death. Lena had avoided the house like the plague until she couldn’t anymore.  
Art’s phone pinged, and she looked down at it.   
“Uncle’s here”, she said, getting to her feet with some difficulty. “Let’s go talk to him. 

Thomas Winter was an imposing man, not one to suffer fools gladly; Lena could tell even before he opened his mouth. He was tall but appeared taller, muscular, with broad shoulders and piercing eyes, and made up in what he lacked in looks with charisma. He had a cool, penetrating gaze that made her uncomfortable and his demeanor was arrogant enough to ruffle even Dos Santos’s feathers, though he showed a degree of professional deference once they’d launched into their medical gobbledegook. Lena couldn’t shake the impression that he was postponing having to meet his niece. That, at least, she understood.   
She listened in for a while, feeling superfluous and stupid, and wondered why the man’s British accent sounded so much stranger in real life than it did on TV. But then Dos Santos’s mobile phone began to buzz obtrusively and he excused himself, leaving Lena alone with him.   
“So”, he said. “You’re the other Lena.”  
“Yes”, she replied simply, not sure what else to say.   
“You’re the one who found her?”  
“Yes.”  
“Where?”  
She realised that nobody had filled him in yet, and she pointed towards the bench in the hallway. “Let’s sit down, alright?”  
“I’d rather stay standing”, he said coolly. It took her off guard, but still, she sat down. He followed suit reluctantly.  
“I’m not sure how much Interpol told you - “  
“Egregiously little”, he said, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring down at her.   
“How much do you know?”  
“That you’ve not managed to find the rest of the family, for one”, he said. “For starters I’d like a status update on that.” Lena felt taken aback by that; she’d almost forgotten the man had lost his sister, too.   
“I’m sorry”, she said. “We’re working on it. So far, though, we have no leads and your niece is refusing to talk to us.”  
“I really hope you’re not blaming her for this whole debacle”, he said, and Lena replied: “No sir. Just stating the facts. It’s understandable that she doesn’t want to talk about what happened but unfortunately, she’s our only lead.”  
“I very much doubt that.”  
“You’re free to speak to someone on the forensics team”, Lena told him. “They can talk to you in greater detail about what they have and haven’t found.” If anything, Tex would probably love to talk about it. “I’ll have them give you a call.”  
Thomas Winter gave a curt nod, though his face still spelled trouble. Lena knew the type, the sort of person who’d throw their weight around to deal with the emotions whirling inside them. It was the only thing they knew how to do. She’d probably do the same thing. Hell, she had.   
To her surprise, he said: “Look, I know they’re dead. You don’t have to beat around the bush.”  
“It seems likely”, Lena admitted, though she didn’t think she’d been beating around the bush. “Considering the condition in which your niece was when we found her - “  
“You found her, right?”, he interrupted her. She shook her head. “No, I was first on the scene. I was taking a walk in the area. A local woman came to fetch me. She was the one who found her.”  
“I’m going to need coördinates”, Thomas Winter said. “I’d like to see it for myself.”  
“Sure”, she said. “There’s not much to see, though.”  
He scoffed at that, though she wasn’t sure why. She asked: “What else did they tell you?”  
“Interpol? Nothing. Doctor Dos Santos filled me in on the relevant medical… aspects.”  
“Right”, Lena said. “So you know she was - “  
“Tortured and raped? Sure.” He got up from the bench, clearly agitated and clearly trying not to show it. Lena felt caught off guard by his harsh tone.   
“Don’t worry”, he said bitterly, when he saw her face. “We’ll get her all the right therapy, do all the right things. It won’t make a lick of difference, but that’s what we do.”  
They were silent for a while. She could have told him anything. That it would take time. That it would be an uphill battle. That all he could do was to be there for her. That he couldn’t fix her and that he shouldn’t try to. That she knew all of this from experience.   
Instead, she said: “you should probably go and see her. Might be nice to have a familiar face in the room.”  
“Yeah, she doesn’t like me very much.”  
“Still…”  
“We see each other once a year at Christmas and then we ignore each other best we can.” He laughed humourlessly. “She’s a shrew. I don’t know what you lot here make of her, but she wasn’t exactly a cheerful crowdpleaser before.”  
“Does she have to be?”, Lena asked, though she didn’t want to. He rolled his eyes. “No, of course not. Just… She’s a complicated person.”  
“Which is a euphemism for bitch, right?”  
He shrugged. “It’s not the word I’d use. And I’d say I can handle her, but I probably won’t. My sister and her husband certainly couldn’t. I doubt this is going to make things any better.”  
He had a point there. Still, she said: “If you don’t want to take her in, then don’t. How do you think she’s going to feel if she’s being forced to live with someone who doesn’t want her?”  
“You’d rather I dump her in some stranger’s lap? How’s that going to make her feel? My sister has three brothers and two sisters and nobody else is stepping up, so we’ll have to make do. At least we have the space and the money.”  
In Lena’s experience, people who had money usually pretended they didn’t, at least in talking about it. Thomas Winter, at the very least, was refreshingly direct.   
Lena asked: “and your wife?”  
He scoffed again, and she wasn’t sure what to make of it. He said: “let’s get it over with”, and as she followed him into the room she felt a pang of sympathy for the both of them. 

She took Hannah home that afternoon.   
It felt unreal and uneasy, bundling the baby into her tiny jacket, wrapping her in a blanket and strapping the car seat into the back of the car with fumbling and unpracticed movements, like she was stealing the baby. Like Hannah wasn’t really hers and someone else was going to come along, tell her a mistake had been made and take Hannah away. But she was Lena’s, and she was coming home, and they’d be on their own soon enough. She had Nan to fall back on in case of emergency, sure, and Art to call if she didn’t know what to do. “I’ve raised seven babies”, Art had told her, “very little surprises me anymore.” Lena wondered whether she’d do it, whether she’d call Art if she didn’t know how to deal with diaper rash or teething. Part of her wanted to; part of her thought she’d rather manage on her own. Nevertheless, at least she liked Art and it beat having to call Sara Linton for every hiccup.   
“All set?”, Nan asked, and Lena told her: “I hope so.”   
“You don’t need to feed her, change her nappy or anything?”  
“I did that before we left.” She slid into the passenger seat, glancing back at the tall building behind her, up at the fifth floor. Other Lena had been moved to high care that afternoon; she, too, would be leaving soon. She’d gone back into silent mode with her uncle, staring at her feet with a pissed-off look on her face. Lena understood the feeling. She’d given the girl her card, told her to text or call if she needed to talk. It had been an easy gesture to make, but an empty one too because they both knew the girl would never take her up on it. She’d be whisked away by the evil uncle to a foreign country and never be seen or heard from again. Maybe, just maybe, she’d be alright in due time, but Lena knew she’d probably never hear from the girl again.   
She stared out the window as Nan chatted distractedly about work, books, the weather, and though Lena didn’t really listen she felt grateful for the distraction. She watched as traffic went by, saw the highrise of the city drop into suburbia and then the more familiar countryside. When Hannah began to wail around their halfway point, Nan nearly steered the car into oncoming traffic.   
“Christ”, she said. “She’s loud.”  
“She’s probably just hungry”, Lena said, looking over her shoulder, but there wasn’t much to see except for a tiny little fist waving about in furious indignation.   
“There’s an IHOP about five minutes from here, I think”, Nan said. “Think she can wait that long?”  
She nursed Hannah in the backseat of the car while Nan took her time getting coffee. Was she even supposed to drink coffee? She’d been suffering from chronic headaches when she was in hospital because they wouldn’t give her any, and in hindsight she wondered why that had been. There were so many questions. She supposed she could google the answers, but frankly the whole task seemed daunting. Much easier to lean back and trust her instincts, but what if she didn’t have any instincts?  
After Hannah had fallen asleep and Lena had tucked her clothes back in place and Nan had returned to the car with coffee and danishes, they drove on, and Lena remembered the coffee and danishes that Art had brought her on her way over to Atlanta. It seemed like a lifetime ago, like Lena had been a different person then. Maybe she had been.  
When they got back to Heartsdale that, too, seemed different. She couldn’t put her finger on it but she supposed she felt like a soldier returning from the battlefield. Nothing was the same, even though life had continued here while she had moved on.   
Nan helped her unload the car, then asked: “do you want me to spend the night here? Because if you don’t want - “  
“Thanks”, Lena said, before she could change her mind, “but we’ll be alright.”


	17. Chapter 17

She was alright. She needed to remind herself of that fact sometimes, but in essence she was alright. Tired, but hanging in there. She’d certainly been worse. In a way having a tiny human being dependent on her helped; she had a reason to get out of bed in the morning. And the night. And the evening. And she was fairly lucky in that Hannah, outside of pangs of hunger, was a good sleeper; she’d wake up in the middle of the night, wailing like all the sorrow in the world had descended on her head, but ten minutes at Lena’s breast and she went back to snoring like a sailor. Lena wasn’t sure what to make of it.   
“She’s doing fine”, Sara Linton had said. “Preemies often sleep a lot. It might not last.”   
She’d cross that bridge when she’d get there.   
In the mean time, there was so much to do: dressing and bathing and feeding and dressing again because Hannah would occasionally spit out her milk, exorcist-style, in one big squirt, dousing herself and her outfit and sometimes the walls or furniture or Lena in baby vomit. Apparently this was normal too.   
In between nursing and naps and strolls around town she tried to keep track of the household, which went better than she could have hoped, even if it took up all her free time. Occasionally, she’d even cook instead of resorting to ready-made meals and microwave dishes. That, too, was different: she couldn’t believe how hungry she was. She hadn’t been hungry for years, but these days there were times she couldn’t sleep because of her growling stomach.   
It wasn’t bad, and it certainly wasn’t the nightmare she’d envisioned. She and Hannah, they’d gotten used to each other; the way Hannah would turn her head when she heard Lena’s voice, or the way she’d stop crying once Lena picked her up, sent rivulets of pride deep down inside of her. Hannah was hers, she was Hannah’s. All in all it was far from the nightmare Lena had anticipated; even the nights were alright once they’d found their groove. Hannah slept in a crib next to Lena’s bed and all Lena would have to do when she woke up was let her latch on, and she’d drink herself into a stupor and they’d both go back to sleep for a few hours. It was doable.   
The only complaint she had, really, was that her brain felt like it was about to atrophy, and now that the baby was here Lena spent a lot of time worrying about how dumb she was becoming. She’d forget stuff, she’d take ages to come to a logical conclusion on anything. There was no-one to talk to during the day and at night she’d be too tired to do anything except watch something stupid and undemanding on tv.   
Eventually, she called Art. Art picked up pretty much straight away.  
“Sup?”, she said.  
“Am I calling at a bad time?”, Lena felt obligated to ask.   
“Why do you always ask that? If it’s a bad time I just don’t pick up. How’s Hannah doing?”  
“Fine. She started smiling.”  
Art made a few cooing noises and Lena felt the need to cut her off. “Actually, I was wondering if you could email me that missing persons file.”  
“What, your namesake’s?”  
“Her family’s, but yes. I just wanted to go over it again, see if I missed anything.”  
“I doubt it”, Art told her. “We’re pretty fucking good at what we do. But really, no problem. It’s on its way.”  
“Thanks.”  
“Sure.” She sighed. “Y’know, if we could get this whole thing over with before I go on leave that’d be great. I’m not sure when I’ll be back.” Art was having twins. To Lena’s surprise she seemed daunted by this, even after having seven babies. Her insistence that it would be alright sounded hollow. There was little Lena could do about it, though, except reaffirm. Art, in all her cool level-headedness and dry sense of humour, would be fine, and if she wasn’t she could afford a second nanny and a night nurse.  
After she’d hung up the file pinged into her inbox, and she downloaded it on her computer when Hannah was asleep. FBI files tended to be stored pretty securely, but Art had sent her a PDF which rendered links invalid. That was alright; all Lena needed was text.   
She scanned through the lines quickly, but nothing stuck out to her. It was all pretty familiar, in spite of the format; a canvassing of the scene, reports of interviews with Marianne Simmonds and Lena herself. The forensics report about the scene was long and detailed - she could tell the FBI had a much bigger budget, even if they were spending most of it on counterterrorism - but short on substance and leads. All they had found were tire tracks and that dratted backpack. The plastic and rope used to tie up the girl was generic, sold in hundreds of DIY-stores all over the country. The tires were generic, too, and well worn, which meant they had limited profile depth in which to carry traces. The girl herself had been scrubbed clean, and everything in and on the plastic tarp - hair, blood, saliva - had been hers. There were long lists of test results that meant little to Lena, presumably because they never ordered them at the station, and DNA tests suggesting the girl came from middle or Eastern Europe. The bag itself had been turned inside out, but it had been generic, mass-produced in China between ten and twenty years ago, which meant it had probably been passed down from one of the parents. The corrector fluid, she saw, had been of the type that wasn’t sold in her high school days, and she sighed. Eventually, the evidence would have cleared her, but only because Tex DeWitt was anally retentive.   
She turned a few pages and saw a report canvassing the area the family might have travelled. Art must have done that at some point. Video footage had been embedded into the file, and Lena played the fragments. They were from the airport terminal and showed the family walking through the terminal, going through passport checks, picking up their rental. It was strange to see them this way, these abstract characters; they didn’t seem real. Peter and Ulrike looked excited; Ulrike held Julia’s hand. Julia, too, was bouncy, chatty, wearing a pink backpack. She had butterfly appliques on her jean jacket. Behind them, eyes glued to her phone, was Other Lena, too much of a teenager to show any excitement. The next clip showed them at the car rental desk, then their car leaving the lot. Art had been diligent and had managed to pick them up off a few traffic cameras but after that the trail went stone cold until, two weeks later, Other Lena resurfaced in Grant County.   
The next few pages detailed the specifics of the interview with the man Lena had shot. He had been identified because one of Art’s colleagues had run into him before: Mitchell Buchanan, aged thirty-nine, originally from Delaware. Despite his dealings at the hospital his record, though expansive, had been mostly petty stuff, and there were no known ties to more bigger criminals, even though an expensive lawyer had showed up at the hospital pretty much straightaway and Buchanan had said absolutely nothing. Lena supposed he was smarter than she gave him credit for. Quiet perps and expensive lawyers meant crime syndicates, and crime syndicates and young girls meant human trafficking, which was odd, because human trafficking victims were usually poor, a lot poorer than this family. On the next page, she read that the body of Mitchell Buchanan had been found in his cell a few days back, early in the morning. The wounds in his knee and his shoulder had barely healed when someone had slit his throat. Lena frowned. This was news to her. There was a link in the file but when she tried to click it, it told her she did not have appropriate access credentials. Art had failed to mention this. It made sense, though; send in the expensive lawyer to make sure he doesn’t say anything stupid, then take care of the problem as soon as he’s safely tucked away in prison. Either he had been punished because he’d fucked up the merchandise, or because he’d failed to dispose of it properly.   
One of them, anyway. There was still no sign of the others. If Lena’d had to bet money on it she would have said they were dead. Their fate would be worse if they weren’t. But whether they were dead or alive, it'd be hard to find them. Any traces the FBI had failed to discover somehow would have been long gone. She found the page that detailed the tire tracks and pulled up a map of the area.   
“Reason for detour unknown”, the report said, which was an understatement. They’d taken a considerable risk by driving through a muddy pasture over a road that wasn’t really a road to get to another muddy pasture, where they rejoined the road they’d left less than a mile earlier. No local would do that. Either they’d been lost, or they’d been trying to be evasive. The road they’d used, Fallow Road, was a narrow strip of asphalt that led on to the i-87 a few miles down. Tracks had dried up by then, but there wasn’t really anywhere else to go. Driving in the other direction would leave them in another muddy field and no traces had been found there. They could’ve taken the I-95 and ended up in the Carolinas, or, if they’d changed directions, Alabama. The FBI had come to the same conclusion and had flagged the relevant field stations, but now, weeks later, nobody had been found. Nobody, no bodies. The Adamses had disappeared into thin air.   
She studied the map for a few more minutes, but then Hannah began to cry and she had to give up.

She decided to recreate the route the next day. Surely there was no harm in that? She wasn’t going to risk driving over the treacherous trail at the top of the hill, but that wasn’t where they should be looking. There was nothing there. Instead, she drove up and down Fallow Road, twice, then a third time, but nothing stuck out, so she paused and kept the engine running as The Black Keys went on about Little Black Submarines on her speakers and Hannah, in her car seat, snored her tiny little baby snores.  
“Fuck if I know”, Lena told Hannah.   
But she wasn’t giving up; she was here now, she might as well go ahead. She turned the car, drove up Fallow road until it joined the I-87 and then followed the interstate aimlessly, trying to both drive and scan the side of the roads, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. The immediate vicinity of the roadside had been checked before and again, nothing had been found.   
She drove on for about half an hour, looking for exits. Intuitively, she passed the first few. The third one, though, seemed off. She’d been there before and had never given it much thought, but now that she was here it seemed strange, this exit. It had a bridge crossing the interstate that seemed to go nowhere except in the other direction, but when she got on it she noticed that there was a small road running beside the interstate for about a quarter of a mile before slipping inland, into the forest. This was well outside of Grant County territory. The road was badly maintained and she wondered where it went. Wondered, too, what she was doing here.   
Still, she pressed on. Her gun and holster were in her glove compartment. She glanced at Hannah, knowing she should stop, turn around. There was no reason for her to be here, to examine this area. All she had was a hunch.  
Yet if she didn’t, who would?  
She stopped the car in the middle of the road, picked up her phone and called Art.   
“Hey”, Art said. “Are you bored again? I can - “  
“That B-road off the I-87”, Lena interrupted. “There’s an exit there that kind of goes nowhere, except there’s a road here that didn’t show up on the map.”  
“Let me check”, Art said, and Lena heard the rattle of a computer keyboard. “You’re right, there’s nothing on the map.” She paused. “Are you there right now?”  
“No”, Lena lied. “I noticed when I drove past it the other day.”  
“Good. Because if you are - “  
“I’m not.”  
“ - That would be reckless and stupid. Hang on.” There was more keyboard rattling, and then Art said: “I can’t find anything for the area but if I look at satellite images, there’s a clearing not far from the road you’re pretending not to be on.” Lena winced and turned her head, as if to turn away from the phone call.   
“Not sure what’s up there, but I’ll try to find out. The County might know. What on earth brought you up there?”  
“I just - “ She scrambled to come up with an answer, but as she did her eye caught something.  
“Hold on”, she told Art, and Art replied - “Lena, stay in the damn car.”  
Lena ignored her and opened her door, cautiously checking her surroundings. It was patently ridiculous, of course; she was in the middle of a forest, if someone wanted to hide out here she wouldn’t find them. All she had to do was get back in the car and go home. And there probably wasn’t anything out here anyway; far more likely the men had continued up the interstate and vanished in the heartland somewhere.   
Except, why would they risk a long drive over the interstate across state borders with three corpses in the trunk, in broad daylight? And if they had, why was she now staring at a hairpin with a butterfly on it?  
She knew better than to pick it up. Instead, she told Art: “I found something.”  
“Lena, I swear - “  
“Yeah, yeah”, she said impatiently. “I’ll turn around, I promise.” She put the phone on speaker and engaged the camera, then snapped a few pictures. “That little girl, the youngest daughter - she had a bunch of butterflies on her jacket, right?”  
“Did you find the jacket?”  
“No, but there’s something here, like a child’s hair clip, that has a butterfly on it. I’ll text you a picture.”  
“Do it from your car”, Art ordered. This time, Lena obeyed.

They met again when dusk was just beginning to make itself known, giving the sky overhead an ominous shade of pewter. Hannah had been dropped off at Nan’s for the evening and Lena had been halfway down the driveway before she realised that this was the first time she’d been without her baby in months. It felt weird, like she was missing an appendage, but quietly exhilarating too.   
“Now I can see why your boss yells at you so much”, Art said as Lena approached her car. She had parked it in front of a rusty gate that was down the road, and she was in the driver’s seat with the door open. Lena said: “You’re out here on your own, too.”  
“Fair enough. Brought my kids, even.” She patted her protruding stomach. “I called in the SPLAT team.”  
“The SPLAT team?”  
Art shrugged. “It’s what we call them. They’re like half SWAT, half fire brigade. Apparently there’s an old mine shaft down that road.” Her voice sounded neutral, light-hearted even, but Lena could sense Art felt the same way she did. An abandoned mine shaft out in the middle of nowhere was a perfect hiding place for bodies.   
“I bagged that hairclip”, Art said, just as a large, black truck pulled up behind them. Art gave the driver a wave and went over as he and his men climbed down.  
“Afternoon, gentlemen”, she said. “Lena, this is John Billings, he’s the SPLAT commander. John, this is Detective Lena Adams.”  
“Ma’m”, John said. “We contacted the county. Basically the sheriff has no idea what’s out there. They just fenced it off and hoped it would go away, I guess. Doesn’t attract many people, they’ve only had to get out here once and that was at least fifteen years ago. Couple a kids went in to explore and got stuck. They boarded it up after that.”  
“They didn’t use explosives?”  
“Too expensive. Mining company that’s supposed to be responsible went bust in the seventies.”  
“What did they mine?”, Art asked as they moved down towards the gate. One of the men rushed forward with a set of keys.   
“Cobalt”, he said. “There’s never been much out there, though. The mine was never lucrative. It’s pretty small, so that’s helpful. The downside is, they left it unattended because it’s so small and we’ve no idea about the conditions inside.”  
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out”, Art said, and it sounded more like an order than a compliment.   
The gates swung open and they followed up the path. The asphalt had disappeared into two tire tracks overgrown with weeds, though it was broad enough for them to walk through.   
“It doesn’t look like anyone’s been here for a while”, Art said, but John shook his head and pointed at the ground. “Some of those weeds are still flattened. Someone’s been here in the past few weeks.”  
Art and Lena exchanged a look, and Lena felt her heart begin to pound. A few weeks was the wrong time frame.   
John said: “alright, the two of you stay out here and - “  
“No way”, Lena said, just as Art told him: “not fucking likely.” John rolled his eyes.   
“Fine. You can come”, he told Lena. “Hendrix, give her a mask, a suit and some boots. You know what you’re looking for, right?”  
“Sure.” She was surprised he wasn’t putting up more of a fight, but not about to complain.   
“You do exactly what I tell you to do”, John said sternly, and she nodded.  
“I still - “, Art began, but he cut her off. “You’re pregnant and abandoned mines are a dangerous place. You’re staying out here.”  
Art grumbled, but Lena saw a look of embarrassment cross her face, and she understood the feeling all too well.   
“If it is what I think it is they’re not going to be very deep down”, she said as she sat down to pull on the oversized wetsuit the captain had given her. Unlike a regular wetsuit it went over her clothes, sealing tightly at her neck, wrists and ankles. The boots Hendrix had given her were at least two sizes too big, but she was used to that by now.   
“Put this on”, Hendrix told her, handing her a respirator.   
“Is that really necessary?”, Art said. Hendrix rolled his eyes but John, evidently the more patient one, said: “Oftentimes there’s toxic gasses and such trapped in old mines. You won’t smell ‘em, you just drop dead.”  
Art suddenly looked relieved to stay behind. Lena did not blame her.   
Still, she put on the respirator without complaint and slogged behind the men, feeling about as welcome as a toddler on date night. Someone handed her a flashlight, and in they went.   
The mine shaft was pitch black, and their flashlights barely seemed to make a dent. The air was floating with dust particles stirred up by their feet. The men ahead of her walked single file though the shaft was fairly wide, and she soon learned why as a shouted message was passed back.   
“Be careful”, John’s voice came in over the radio. “There’s a flooded shaft up ahead. We’ll put a flare up. Keep to your right.” Up ahead, an eerie green light lit up the walls of the mine, and Lena felt her courage sink as she trudged towards it. The flooded shaft was in the middle of the corridor; if not for the glowstick, she would have missed it entirely. Nervously she edged past it, realising only when she got to the other side that she’d have to come back somehow. The water, still and pitch black, seemed to glare at her, and she imagined monsters leaping out and trying to grab her. Ridiculous of course, but here, in the dark, it seemed all too plausible.   
The rest of the shaft seemed endless and she felt like they walked for hours when in reality, it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. At a certain point the men stopped and gathered; by the time she reached them they seemed to have finished their discussion. They were at a crossing. One of them - John, probably, but it was hard to tell - dropped another glowstick, a red one this time, and told her: “we’re going to split up. I need you to stay here. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”  
“I can - “, she began, but he cut her off.   
“You do as I say”, he repeated. “Them’s the rules.”  
“Alright”, she caved, secretly relieved not to have to struggle past any more sinkholes. Unnerved, she leaned against the wall, watching the men disappear into the corridors to her right and to her left. In the distance, the green light by the flooded shaft glowed ominously.  
She’d expected another long wait, or rather, a short wait that felt long, but she heard shouting after mere seconds, and the men came rushing back in. She wondered if there’d been an accident, but John reached out to her and said: “we found something. Come check it out.”  
“What - “  
“Bodies”, he said, not bothering to wait for her. “They’ve been here for a while, but you might recognise their clothes.”  
She followed him down the shaft with some trepidation. It was a lot narrower than the one she’d been in before, and it seemed to get tighter with each step. John didn’t seem to care that both of his shoulders were now brushing the sides of the tunnel at the same time. Her heart skipped a beat when her flashlight began to falter, until she saw a pale glow coming from a nook to the left.  
“How many are there?”, she asked, but he shrugged. “Hard to tell. They’re wrapped in plastic and piled up. Five or six, maybe. There’s another branch to the left down there. Saw a pair of feet poking out from one of the wraps. We’ll leave them there until forensics gets here, but you might be able to take a peek.” They’d gotten to the shaft to the right; it was surprisingly wide when compared to the narrow corridor, and Lena breathed a sigh of relief, at least until she saw the mountain of plastic and body parts haphazardly stacked to the side. ‘A pair of feet’, John had said, but that had been an understatement; what she saw was a pair of legs, mottled with decay, and she knew that had it not been for the respirator she’d be surrounded by the stench of rotting flesh. Judging from the hair covering the legs they’d belonged to a man. Peter Adams, or someone else, unrelated?  
Gingerly she made her way around the bodies, then lifted a corner of the plastic.   
“You don’t need to see that”, John told her.  
“Yes, I do”, she told him firmly, feeling her resolve strengthen. This was what she did, what she did well. Dead bodies had never scared her. Why would they? Yet the men seemed to be reluctant to be in the same space as the corpses, hanging back and watching her move about with distaste. She ignored them as she lifted up a piece of plastic on the opposite side.   
She’d seen the pictures so many times now that their faces had been etched into her memory, but though the cave was chilly, too much time had passed. Parts of the face had vanished as if they had melted off, and the eyes had shrivelled and sunken. The lips had retracted and the teeth were bared; in some parts, the leathery skin had cracked and the skull was already shining through.   
“There’s no animals in here to speed up the process”, John said. “Either we’re down too deep or there’s a serious case of blackdamp.”  
“Blackdamp?” She studied the face, noticed the fuzz on what was left of the upper lip.  
“A mix of gases found in enclosed spaces like mines”, John said. “Very toxic. Animals might’ve sensed it, though I wouldn’t be surprised to find a couple a dead critters in these hallways.”  
“Right.” She folded the plastic back up. “I can’t tell if it’s him. Might be.” She moved down to another sheet, lifted a tip, aimed her flashlight, but before she got a look at the face, she noticed that something had been stuffed into the plastic. She saw blond hair and what looked like a backpack handle. Unable to resist, she tugged on it slightly until she could reach the name tag, her fingers fumbling with it in the unwieldy gloves, until she could read it.   
Name: Julia Adams, Adresse: Wachsenburgstraße 15, Erfurt. 

“Were you surprised?”, Art asked. Lena shrugged.   
“Not really. Maybe that we ended up finding them after all.”  
Art nodded quietly. Lena noticed how her hands kept moving over her abdomen, and she knew Art was thinking about her children. Lena had been thinking about Hannah, too.   
“Would you want to know?”, Art asked. “Or would you rather remain unaware?”  
“I’d want to know”, Lena said, though before the words had left her mouth she realised it wasn’t true, not entirely. “In this case I’m not sure what would be better. We both know what happened to them. I think Thomas Winter must have come to the same conclusion.”  
“Not to mention your namesake”, Art said. “I wonder if it’ll help her to know we’ve found them.”  
Lena thought of the bodies in the cave, haphazardly discarded, left to sink into oblivion for months. She knew they didn’t care, were beyond caring about anything, but she thought about the endless days and nights they must have spent in there. It felt lonely to her, even if it didn’t to them.   
John and his scuba team were trudging in and out of the cave along with a forensics team that Art had drummed up. By now it was late in the evening. Not that they noticed much of it; the entire area had been lit up by floodlights hooked up to a generator that hummed contentedly in the background. It looked so much like daylight that she felt her body’s confusion. Tex had been there, too, blathering excitedly about the history of coal mining, the chemical composition of cobalt and an obscure German tv show about caves and time travelling, and for once, Lena had not minded. She’d welcomed the distraction. She’d expected to feel vindicated, victorious, but instead there was disappointment, sadness. Maybe part of her had hoped they were still alive. Maybe she was just disappointed Jeffrey hadn’t called or come over; the whole thing had started on his turf. So she’d listened to Tex’s chattering, happy that he, at least, wasn’t disappointed. But Tex was gone now, thrilled to be going inside the old mine, and soon they’d start to bring out the bodies, wrap them up in plastic anew, transport them to a lab in Atlanta where they’d be stuffed into a freezer, safe but alone this time. Even lonelier. And then some unlucky bastard was going to have the unenviable task of having to fly the bodies home, back to Germany. Or would they stick them onto a regular flight, pile them into an oversized cooler and not tell the other passengers?  
Art’s phone rang, and she picked up, exchanging a few terse words with whoever was on the other side. Lena checked her own phone. Nan had texted her a photo about an hour ago, of Hannah, in her crib, her dark eyes staring up at the lens with detached curiosity. Nan had captioned it “time for bed!” Lena had sent a text back, asking if Nan was alright staying the night. Nan had responded with a blushing emoticon, which presumably meant yes. Lena kept returning to the picture, though, stroking the screen like an idiot. She tucked the phone away.   
“That was that moron from Interpol”, Art said, doing the same thing. “Cocky little shit. He’ll contact the family.”  
“You think she’ll be relieved?”, Lena asked. Art shrugged. “Don’t know.”  
Lena didn’t know either, whether there would be relief, raw grief, or absolutely nothing. Part of her wanted to call up that arrogant bastard from Interpol and tell him not to bother telling the family, telling the girl.   
When the men in the scuba suits began to bring up the bodies, Art suddenly said: “I’m going home.”  
Lena glanced sideways, but Art was already gathering her bag and fumbling for her car keys. She looked upset.   
“Are you alright?”, she asked.   
“Fine”, Art said curtly, but then she stopped in her tracks and said: “I just…”  
I know, Lena thought. She said: “I’ll wait here until they’re done.”  
“Thanks”, Art said, her voice sounding strained, and she got into the car, avoiding Lena’s eyes as she backed it up. Lena watched her disappear, the red of her tail lights glowing ominously from between the trees.


	18. Chapter 18

“...So anyway”, Tex said, “that’s why we stopped using bakelite. Nothing but coincidence. Although - “  
“You want to start with the guyl?”, Lena interrupted him, checking her watch. Art was running late.   
“You want me to? I don’t really care in which order I take them on, though historically I suppose it’s the guys we ought to start with. Did you know that Zoroastrian burial traditions ruled that - “  
“I’m going to give Art a call”, she told him. “Be right back.”  
She’d imagined the FBI had access to some sort of high-tech lab to do autopsies but the state lab she was in didn’t much differ from the room Sara Linton worked in. It was old and dinghy, though bigger than the Grant County morgue. The only high-tech thing about it was the massive freezer that could hold up to twenty bodies. Six of those had come out of the old mine, plus assembled body parts that a diver had fetched painstakingly and at considerable risk from the bottom of the flooded vertical shaft. Little more than bone was left of them. Tex had taken a brief look at them and established that they had belonged to at least three different people. She wasn’t sure how he’d come to that conclusion so quickly; to her it hadn’t even looked like a pile of bones, just dull grey sticks with sludge on them.   
She left the room as Tex and his assistant manoeuvred the first corpse onto the exam table, but while she was scrolling through her phone she saw Art appear at the end of the hallway.  
“Hey!”, she called out. “Have they started yet?”  
“No”, Lena said. “I’ve had a lecture about the history of plastics. I bowed out when he started talking about Zoroastrians, whatever the hell that might be.”  
“Ancient civilisation from the Middle East”, Art said. “He definitely has it in for you. He never talks dirty with me like that.”  
The joke rang hollow, neither of them were in the mood for it. She followed Art back into the room just as Tex pulled away the last of the body bag.   
The remains were dessicated and mostly skeletal; the bits of tissue that remained had shrunk or were gone altogether, and flecks of dried tissue mottled the table’s ancient white enamel. From the tufts of dirty blonde hair and the size of the remains she gathered this had been Peter Adams. The hairly legs she’d seen in the cave must have belonged to a different, more recent victim.   
“Any idea about the cause of death yet?”, she asked Tex, who was struggling with the tries of his apron.   
“Nope”, Tex said. “He dead, that’s the only thing I can tell you. I’ll give it my best but we might not find out.”  
That much she’d gathered. There wasn’t much to tell from a set of bones, though she knew from experience that they could sometimes yield surprisingly detailed information if you ran samples through a spectrograph.   
“Alrighty”, Tex said, switching on the dictaphone. “Starting the postmortem examination of subject JC-zero-one-one, the suspected remains of Mr Peter Heinrich Adams of Erfurt, Thuringia, Germany. Identity is yet to be confirmed by dental records. Present in the room are detective Lena Adams, no relation, and Special Agent Artemis Colvin - “  
“Excuse me”, Art muttered behind Lena, then rushed out of the room, hand clasped to her mouth.  
“... Or not”, Tex said, then, when he saw Lena’s surprised face: “Don’t worry. She really fucking hates autopsies. Especially when she’s pregnant. Good god, that woman is breeding her own hole into the ozone layer.” He shook his head. “She’ll be fine.”  
“I should - “  
“If you leave the room we can’t continue”, Tex said. “C’mon, there’s three people to get through this afternoon. Art’s fine. She’ll be back.”  
Reluctantly, Lena stayed in the room as Tex went over the remains, checking them for damage and recording it on his dictaphone. For the second time she noticed it was like he had a dual personality; the motormouthed clown seemed to have disappeared, and he wasn’t easily distracted; he barely looked up when someone else came into the room, grabbed something from the counter and disappeared again. When the door swung open behind the man she saw Art, sitting on a bench in the hallway. Art gave her a wan smile that said please don’t talk to me, so Lena stayed put.  
“Damage to the skull is antemortem”, Tex said suddenly. “There’s a webbed fracture with some healing, not much of it though. He died about a day or two after the damage was inflicted.”  
“They beat him to death?”   
“Looks like it”, Tex said. “If it had been a fall the damage would be much more localised.” He pointed at a series of cracks on the side of the skull. “See this spider-web like pattern? There’s a sort of flattened ridge below it. I’m guessing they used a spade with a flat blade.” He pointed at the tufts of hair. “There’s some traces of blood in the hair as well. That alone doesn’t tell us much but it is consistent.”  
“Any idea about the timeframe?”, Lena asked. He shook his head. “Considering the state of decay I’d say several months, but under a year. Let’s say three to six months.”  
It was the right time frame. She stared at the body. It was beginning to shed, mottling the table with flecks of desiccated tissue.   
“Right”, Tex said. “X-ray time.” He handed her a leaden apron and as she put it on, he pulled up a series of dental films on his computer screen. “Let’s see if we can find a definite ID.”

Art was still on her perch in the hallway, leaning back in her seat, feet splayed inelegantly. She looked queasy and Lena wondered whether it had been the autopsy, the idea of it at least, or something unrelated.   
“Sorry”, Art said when she saw Lena, and she sat up. “Don’t tell my boss. He already thinks women shouldn’t be in law enforcement.”  
“I won’t”, Lena said, sitting down. “We have a positive ID.”  
Art nodded slowly. “Figures.”  
“Partial matches on both Peter and Ulrike. Dentist didn’t have x-rays of Julia just yet, but her medical records show she broke her left arm and collarbone three years back and that showed up during the autopsy.”  
Art sighed. “So we should probably call Thomas Winter.”  
“I’ll handle it.”  
“I can - “  
“Nah. You call that idiot from Interpol.”  
Art rolled her eyes. “Great.” She made no attempt to get up.   
“You alright?”, Lena asked, and she shrugged.   
“I just really fucking hate autopsies. Can’t get used to them no matter how many I attend.” She looked at Lena. “They don’t bother you, do they?”  
“Not really”, she admitted. “I thought they would, the first time I saw one, but they’re not that bad.”  
“They’re grotesque”, Art said. “I told Merlin I don’t want one when I die, no matter what.” She looked away. “Tex and I made a deal. I don’t have to be there and he doesn’t report me.”  
“And in return?”  
“Nothing. Tex is actually a pretty decent guy.” She sat up straight and Lena thought she was going back to business, but instead she said: “Do you think they’ll be relieved?”  
“The family?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think they had much hope left.”  
“Oh, I think there’s always some hope left, no matter how slim the chances of seeing them alive again.” She got to her feet. “Come on, there’s an office down the hall. We can call the family there.”

Lena, to her surprise, ended up on Art’s front porch that night. It was a nice spring evening, the first one of the year. Art’s house had a large lawn at the back where four children were playing soccer; a toddler was sitting a few feet away, banging toys against the wooden railing of the porch. At the end of the lawn a stringy pre-teen was sullenly leafing through a book, doing her damnedest to ignore Lena. She realised that this must be Freya. The other kids had all come to shake her hand with studied politeness, after which Art had shoeed them off. More voices came from inside the house, which was unsurprisingly roomy and chaotic, and Lena wondered if Art ever got any peace and quiet at all.   
The house was far away enough from central Atlanta to be considered suburban, though it technically fell within the city limits. It sat on a large plot of land with a neatly trimmed and maintained bungalow at the other end where Art’s inlaws lived. Art’s house itself was a big, hulking structure of brick and wood, full of eclectic trimming, twisting chimneys and a gabled roof. It even had a turret. There was nothing simple about it; it was the kind of house an early Edwardian would have built to show off his wealth. Just enough upkeep had been done to make it look halfway decent but Lena had been inside just long enough to see piles of laundry and sagging couches. “It’s a pigsty”, Art had said of her house, “but it’s my pigsty.” Lena had been quietly glad her house wasn’t this messy, but then again there was something homely about it, about the kids bickering and running around the yard and the lanky girl with the pale limbs awkwardly crouched on the swing set, like something from a children’s book.   
“It’s a pretty house”, Lena had said, and Art had looked back at it as if she’d forgotten what it looked like.   
The kids kept their distance as they sat outside and talked, and though it was late Art made no move to send them inside. She said: “it bothers me that we don’t have anything.”  
“We found the bodies”, Lena pointed out, but she felt it too, that deeply unsatisfying feeling of unresolved issues. “And those guys at the hospital - “  
“Hired goons, probably”, Art said. “It’s a dead end. Problem with human trafficking is that it’s all done under the radar. The people in charge aren’t the ones getting arrested and even if we know who they are, they’re usually in a different country.” She shook her head. “I guess that’s why those Interpol agents are all so blasé. It’s how they cope with getting fuck all done.”  
Lena shook her head. “Even if it was human trafficking, then why these people? A middle class family from Germany is hardly the target audience.”  
“Unless they’d been following them and knew they wouldn’t be missed for weeks.”  
“But they wouldn’t know to do that in the first place unless they knew who they were dealing with”, Lena said. “Picking up a random family from the streets is risky. Professionals wouldn’t do that.”  
“So let’s assume they’re not random”, Art said. “And that letting the girl live was a mistake. Why this family?”  
“Did you contact - “  
“German police? Sure. Well, I asked the embassy to do so. Got a very thorough report. In English, even. They checked out family members, neighbours, friends, coworkers, teachers, school friends. Nothing. They were a very average family, drove a ten year old car, lived in a row house. This was their first vacation outside of the European mainland. Only debt they had was their mortgage.” She took a sip of her coffee; she’d half-heartedly offered beer, but for the first time in a while there wasn’t a single cell in Lena’s body that wanted alcohol.   
“Can they be trusted, German police?”  
Art laughed. “There’s this thing called the CPI, Corruption Perceptions Index. It’s… well, an index of corruption. Germany is, like, the seventh least corrupt country in the world. They have more reason to distrust us than we do them. Hell, they don’t trust us. With some reason.”  
“We’re not that bad”, Lena said, feeling just a little bit patriotic. Art shrugged.   
“We’re somewhere in the mid-twenties. We’re not, like, Russia or Saudi-Arabia or anything.” She took a sip of coffee. “And anyway, you’re not wrong, depending on what you mean with ‘we’. Grant County is doing alright. At least, it has been since your boss took over. Before that, not so much.”  
“I wasn’t there back then.”  
“I know”, Art said. “I…”  
“You read my file.” Lena could not get used to the idea. Art shrugged. “And your boss’s. You two are entirely unremarkable, aside from a few… well, you know.”  
“No, I don’t. You wanna illuminate me?”, Lena said dryly, but Art didn’t take the bait.   
“I wanted to know what kind of snakepit I was walking into. Small town police forces are a bitch to deal with.”  
That did not surprise Lena. If not for Jeffrey the town would have spat her out years ago. If they did not take kindly to someone who had been living there for roughly a decade then they certainly wouldn’t appreciate a meddlesome stranger. Lena didn’t much care for it herself, even if she didn’t feel particularly part of the community.   
“Anyway”, Art said. “Why this family?”  
“Either they knew them or they didn’t”, Lena said, trying to establish a train of thought. “If they knew them it must have been personal, otherwise the risk is too great.”  
“German PD couldn’t find any enemies”, Art said. “No debts, no ties to the criminal circuit, no connections on this side of the pond.”  
“And then they wouldn’t have waited for the family to come to America”, Lena said. “So let’s assume it’s a coincidence. They ran into the wrong people.”  
Art shook her head. “How? They didn’t know anyone here, nobody saw them or talked to them before they disappeared.”   
“Maybe we’re looking at it from the wrong angle.” Lena leafed through the file that Art had kindly dug up. “We’re assuming human trafficking because those goons at the hospital were tied to organised crime. But they ruined the merchandise and took a major risk.”  
“It doesn’t make sense”, Art agreed.   
“Right. You assumed the perps knew me because they knew my name. It’s a logical assumption but it turned out to be just a coincidence. What if it’s all a coincidence?”  
“They ran into the wrong people?” Art shook her head. “These were nice, friendly people, by all accounts. It would take a lot for them to piss off the pros, and why would they run into them first?”  
“The parents, the younger kid, they were nice”, Art said. “But the girl - “  
“You’re thinking she’s behind this?”, Art said incredulously. Lena shook her head.   
“Not behind this. I don’t think she organised it.”  
“That would be insane”, Art said.   
“No, but Thomas Winter said she’s a shrew. Or was, anyway. She could’ve mouthed off to the wrong people.”  
“But where would they meet the wrong people? And even if she did that and if it got out of hand, why didn’t they just call the police?”  
“When was the last time their phones were on?”   
“Different times”, Art said. “Ulrike’s phone pinged just after leaving the airport, Lena’s half an hour after that and Peter’s switched off at a gas station in Napalo County. That’s the last sign we have of them.”  
Lena leafed through the file, looking at the timestamps the phone company had reluctantly provided.   
“That doesn’t make any sense either”, she said. Art shrugged. “It was a long flight, they might not have had a chance to charge them.”  
“Fifteen year olds are practically glued to their screens”, Lena said. “And by all accounts, she was a smart kid. She would have anticipated the battery running low. She could’ve brought a power bank.”  
“If she could afford it.”  
“She had a six month old iPhone. Those are expensive.” She leafed through the file again and pulled out the details of the rental.   
“They were given a spare car”, Art said. “An older model they keep on the lot as backup.”  
“Was it what they booked?”  
“No, but the rental company gave them a discount and they didn’t complain about it.”  
“A newer model would have had USB ports”, Lena said. “If they thought they had those at their disposal they wouldn’t have brought a battery or charged their phones at the airport.”  
Art seemed to mull it over. “Well, that explains why their phones were switched off. I’ll check with the rental company. But it doesn’t explain why they disappeared.” She pursed her lips, lost in thought, then asked: “That girl, she knew you.”  
“Yes. She googled me.”  
“Have you ever Googled yourself?”  
“No”, Lena said indignantly. Art looked incredulous. “Really?”  
“I know what I’d find”, Lena said. “I have no interest in looking at that.”  
“But the girl did. She was very interested in you. She knew a lot about you.” Art pulled out her phone. “But you must have been in the local paper or news site, lists of 911 calls, that sort of thing, possibly with the names of people you’ve arrested.”  
“You think - “  
“What if she recognised someone else she wasn’t supposed to recognise?”  
“I didn’t know those two people at the hospital”, Lena said. “Or their associates.”   
“But we didn’t look into that very far”, Art replied. “We didn’t find any ties to the girl or to you, but once she fessed up and told us that she shared a name with you, we stopped looking at you and focused on her. What if it is about you, she found out about it and recognised someone?”  
“She would have been incredibly stupid to mouth off to someone she recognised as being a criminal”, Lena said.   
“Well”, Art said. “Fifteen year olds don’t always make the best calls when it comes to keeping their mouth shut.”


	19. Chapter 19

Art called her three days later, right at the end of her first shift.   
“Ellen McCall”, she said. “You arrested her for public intoxication in 2013.”  
“If you say so”, Lena said, rubbing her eyes. She was feeling exhausted, though the day hadn’t been particularly difficult. She missed Hannah, she was hungry and the only pizza place in Heartsdale that did deliveries was closed on Tuesdays. She found it hard to care.   
“She was the girlfriend of one Vince Johnson, who in turn is the half-brother of Mitchell Buchanan. The guy - “  
“ - I shot who got himself conveniently murdered”, Lena remembered. “What’s your point?”  
“I googled you”, Art said. “First of all, Christ you have a lot of arrests to your name. Secondly we didn’t pick up on it immediately because they have different names, Johnson doesn’t live with his girlfriend, it’s a hot mess. Thing is, though, there’s a picture of Johnson yelling at you while you’re reeling in his girlfriend on your local news website, and then there’s a different article that it links to about Johnson being arrested by one officer Stevens for drunkenly plowing his car into a statue.”  
“But that doesn’t explain - “  
“Vince Johnson looks remarkably like Mitchell Buchanan”, Art said. “And it can’t have been Johnson she saw, because he’s been vacationing on uncle Sam’s dime in an Arkansas penitentiary. So I’m going to do some further digging. Wanna hang out? We’ll talk to McCall together.”  
“What, now?”, Lena said.   
“Nah. I’ll pick you up in the morning. Are you working?”  
“Yes”, Lena said indignantly, but Art didn’t catch her tone. “I’ll call your boss. Shouldn’t be a problem.” She hung up, leaving Lena to stare at her desk phone. She didn’t like reminders that Art outranked her, let alone that she outranked her boss, but the truth was she was dying to get out of the station after only a day. If she’d thought having a baby would make the other cops more amenable to her she’d been wrong; she was still the outcast, the screwup, the sour bitch. Only Frank and Brad treated her like they always did. Frank had asked her gruffly if ‘the baby’ was at daycare, which, she supposed, was his particularly sour way of showing he cared.   
She slipped out of her seat and went up to Jeffrey’s office; he was staring at the computer screen with a somewhat puzzled look and his nose in the air like a man who thinks he doesn’t need reading glasses.   
“Chief?”, she said, and his eyes darted in her direction briefly before returning to the screen.  
“What?”, he asked curtly, though not unkindly.   
“Agent Colvin rang”, she told him. “She’s got another lead, she wants me to go with her.”  
“You don’t work for her”, Jeffrey said. She shrugged. “I’ll remind her of it, but if it’s alright with you I’d like to do the follow-up in person.”  
“Promising lead?”  
“Not really.”   
He looked away from his screen again, and she knew what he was thinking. He cared. He had a tight budget and not enough staff and there was plenty for her to do here rather than being the lackey to someone with a bigger budget and far bigger resources, but he did care. She liked that about him, though she didn’t envy his position.   
“If you’re up for it, it’s fine with me”, he said, then raised his finger. “One day.”

The next morning she entered the coordinates that Art had given her into her phone and drove to the designated location, a church parking lot just outside of a small town that went by the name of Betonville. Art was already there when Lena arrived. Her stomach was so round it looked like she was smuggling a small planet.   
“Betonville”, Art said, pronouncing it the French way. “I have to say it sounds a lot nicer than it is.”   
Lena shrugged. It hadn’t looked any different from any other Southern town she’d ever been to. Art pulled a few printouts out of her bag.   
“Ellen McCall lives in a trailer park two streets from here. Do you think she’ll recognise you?”  
“Don’t know. If it was a drunk and disorderly.... Was it the first time she got arrested?”  
“Sure. That month.” Art smiled, but Lena felt stand-offish. The feeling she was doing something wrong had returned.   
“So we can go in guns blazing or you can wait in the car and I’ll be her new BFF.  
“Considering the length of her sheet I’d say that’s not going to be very effective”, Lena pointed out.   
“Oh, you’d be surprised how many people want to talk to an FBI agent, air their grievances against local PDs and stuff. Those yellow letter jackets make a mighty big impression.”  
“You’re not wearing one, though.”  
“I have one in my trunk.” She pointed at her car. “But, fair enough. We’ll be the bitch squad.” She patted her belly. “Looking forward to it already.”

Ellen McCall lived in a trailer that, to Lena’s surprise, looked halfway decent in that way that people with little money tend to have. The woodwork was splintering, but covered in a fresh coat of paint; the stoop and porch were made of bare concrete but neatly swept. The geraniums that hung from the porch roof in their plastic pots looked well watered. Lena didn’t remember Ellen McCabe, but she looked younger than she would have guessed from her record. Her indignant scowl didn’t help and she was wearing slippers and sweatpants, but as she was home Lena couldn’t fault her for that. Her hair, mousy brown but neat, was tied in a ponytail and she was wearing a little make-up.   
“The fuck you want?”, she asked, crossing her arms.   
“Miss McCall?”, Art asked, and Lena could have sworn she was sticking out her belly to make it appear even bigger. “I’m Special Agent Colvin, this is detective Adams. We were hoping to - “  
Ellen McCall turned on her heels and ran, sprinting through the trailer; Lena could hear Art swear, but even before her mind had registered what was happening she found herself sprinting after the woman, through the tiny living room, the bedroom, the bathroom, then out back, past other trailers. Someone drunkenly cheered her on, then threw a half empty beer can at her head; she managed to dodge it, and it hit the ground behind her, the contents exploding from the container. Ahead of her, she could see McCall stumble, and Lena knew the woman was out of shape so she pressed on. Fifty yards. Forty. Thirty. The muscles in her legs burned and her lungs were on fire, but she relished in the familiarity of the feeling. She could do this. She had this. Twenty yards.  
McCall suddenly swerved right, hopped into a rusty looking white car, and Lena could see her fumbling for the ignition key. She pulled her weapon and yelled “get out of the damn car!”, but the woman turned the key, the engine revved, and she drove off, tires squealing, leaving Lena panting in the dust. Behind her, a team of drunken rednecks cheered and clapped loudly.  
“Fuck”, Lena said, trying to catch her breath. In the distance she could just make out the car’s license plate, and she struggled to remember it until Art had finally made her way over.   
“For someone who gave birth about two months ago, you’re enviously fast”, Art said.   
“Yeah, well”, Lena replied, “fuckton of good it did.”  
“Did you get the plate?”  
“Can you check it from your phone?”  
As Art entered the number, Lena told her: “she had her escape route planned. She’s up to something.”  
“Agreed”, Art said. “What kind of car was it?”  
“Don’t know. Nothing I recognise. It looked like it was from the eighties, weirdly angular. Like the Delorean from Back to the Future, but without the weird doors.”  
“Strange”, Art said. “You’d think she’d keep a low profile.”  
“It’s not weird enough to be that noticeable”, Lena told her, but then Art’s phone dinged.   
“Plates are fake”, Art said. “What else?”  
“White”, Lena said. “Hatchback, small-ish. It was dirty and I could see rust. It had a fin and some kind of air vent on the side behind the rear door.” She shook her head. “That’s all I know.”  
“I’ll put out a state-wide APB, you call the sheriff's department.”  
“You want to go in guns blazing? She probably just ran off because of an unpaid parking ticket or something.”  
“I’m not taking my chances”, Art said. “And we’re not talking a massive manhunt here.”  
As Lena looked for the number of the sheriff's department, something else popped into her head.   
“The car logo”, she told Art. “It was two chevrons, I think. I’ve never seen it before.”  
“Shit”, Art said, hanging up. “I know what kind of car you’re talking about.” She pressed a few buttons on her phone and showed Lena the car she’d just seen, but in red.   
“That’s it”, Lena said, and Art told her: “It’s a Citroën BX. They were ubiquitous in France when I was growing up. Seemed like everyone drove one. It’s weird, they never really sold over here as far as I know.”  
Lena shrugged. She just wanted Ellen McCall stopped and thrown into a cell for a few hours. “Makes identification easier, though.”  
The Sheriff’s department put her on hold for a minute, and she knew they were making her wait on principle; she was on their turf, possibly unannounced; Art had no obligation to let them know they were here, though it would have been the polite thing to do. Eventually the Sheriff himself picked up.   
“Hi, this is detective Lena Adams from - “  
“You’re with the special agent.” The Sheriff laughed. “That McCall girl got the best of y’all?”  
Bad news travelled fast, apparently. The Sheriff said: “We got the APB just about five seconds before you rang. Should’ve called me. McCall likes to do a runner. Could’ve warned y’all.”  
She highly doubted he would have.   
“So, detective Adams, huh? I think I remember you. Weren’t you the one who - “  
“Gotta go”, Lena said hastily. She checked her watch. It wasn’t even noon yet and the guy on the other end of the line was slurring his words like he was halfway through a bottle of whiskey.   
“I wouldn’t expect too much of the sheriff’s office”, she told Art.   
“Quelle surprise.” She sighed. “Highway patrol’ll pick her up later. Let’s go talk to the neighbour. I saw curtains moving.”

The trailer next to Ellen McCabe’s looked equally well maintained, or would have if the owner hadn’t slapped kitchy memorabilia on every available surface. In the time it took the old woman to reach the door Lena counted fifteen garden gnomes, six cat-related figurines and twelve earthenware frogs.   
“Yes?”, the woman said, doing a poor job of pretending not to know who they were. She was thin to the point of being emaciated, wearing cheap bleached jeans, white sneakers and a baggy, purple t-shirt with the words “Be kind, He shall rewind” above a picture of Jesus holding a VCR cassette. Her eyes were sparkling at the idea of receiving juicy gossip.   
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Miss…”  
“Mrs Allen.” She pulled open the screen door. “I saw you talking to young Ellen. What’s she done now?”  
“I’m special agent Colvin, this is detective Adams”, Art said, though the woman would have asked them in anyway, ID or not. “Do you mind if we come in?”  
Mrs Allen’s eyes slid down to Art’s protruding stomach, and she said: “of course, my dear. Must be so hard to be on your feet now. Is it your first?”  
“Yes”, Art lied, squirming in past the woman, which, given her girth, was impressive. Lena followed suit.”  
“Can I get you ladies some coffee, please?”, Mrs Allen said, and Lena said yes because you never turned down an offer for coffee, no matter how grotty or filthy the house. Put the person you’re talking to at ease, give them something to do, let them be of service to you. Not that Mrs Allen’s house was dirty; it might have been covered in doilies, crucifixes, fake flowers and porcelain, but it looked spotless.   
“You have a lovely home”, Art said, which was another thing you always did.   
“Aw, thanks hon”, Mrs Allen said, though by her tone, Lena could tell she wasn’t fooled; she simply played along. “I used to live here with my husband Carlos, but he passed away from the diabetus five years ago.” She put a plate of delicate china cups and saucers down on the table, then sat down across from them.   
“You must miss him very much”, Art said.   
“Yeah, well.” Mrs Allen took up a cup. “He was a mean old bastard sometimes, to tell you the truth. Never let me do anything with the place, always putting his filthy feet up on the table. But he’s gone now.” She smiled serenely, giving Lena the uncanny feeling that Carlos’s passing might not have been entirely accidental. “I expect you’ll wanna talk about Miss Ellen’s daytime pursuits?” She was clearly itching to spill the beans.   
“If you don’t mind telling us what you saw.” Art’s tone was deferential, as if Mrs Allen was the most important person in the world. It worked like a charm.   
“She’s rude, that McCall girl”, Mrs Allen sniffed, picking up her coffee cup. The dainty porcelain looked frail in her sizeable hands. “She takes good care of her house, but she’s rude.” She nodded triumphantly, as if the fact made her happy. “And that no-good boyfriend of hers is back, too.”  
“She has a boyfriend?”, Art asked. Mrs Allen nodded again.  
“She’d been single for a while”, she said, “but I guess she took him back because a couple of months ago he started to show up again. She didn’t let him spend the night, though. Guess that’s something.”  
Lena and Art exchanged looks. Lena asked: “has he been around recently?”  
“Sure”, Mrs McCall said. “Saw him just... “ She paused. “Actually, now that I think about it it’s been a while. A couple of months. I must not have noticed. You see, I have - “  
“Thanks for your cooperation”, Art said, downing the last of the coffee in one big gulp. “If we have any further questions, we’ll let you know.”  
“Sure, but - “  
They were out the door before Mrs Allen had even finished her sentence. Lena followed Art into her car; she’d left her own outside the church.   
“What was that all about?”, she asked as Art put the car into reverse and swerved out of the makeshift driveway.  
“I got an alert on my phone”, she said. “State trooper’s already pulled up McCabe. He’s taking her to the Sheriff’s office.   
“That’s fast.”  
“Like I said, it’s a weird car. People’ll notice. And besides, she was speeding.”  
“Criminal mastermind, I can tell”, Lena said. Rule number one of escaping unseen: keep a low profile. Breaking the speed limits in an eighties-tastic European castoff was the opposite.   
Lena said: “so Buchanan has been visiting.”  
“But not spending the night. What does that say to you?”  
“They weren’t having sex.”  
“Exactly. It’s not as if he works nights shifts. He hasn’t had a job on record since the Precambrian.” She took an illegal u-turn to get to the Sheriff’s office. “Maybe she’s storing goods for him. Or was. Even someone criminally stupid would know by now to get rid of that.”  
“Maybe she’d been told to keep it”, Lena suggested. “Buchanan got a visit from a mob lawyer.”  
“You’re really going to ask trailer park trash with a single digit IQ to store illicit goods for you?”, Art said. “They’d have known to pick that up.” She parked the car. “Alright. You talked to the Sheriff. What’s he like?”  
“Drunk as a skunk”, Lena said. “Either that or he has a very jovial personality and a speech impediment.”  
“How lovely.” Art sighed. “I hate Sheriff’s departments.”

Ellen McCall’s eyes were black and there was a cut on the bridge of her nose.   
“Ran into the car door while trying to get away”, the Sheriff’s aide had said, looking back nervously at the door to his boss’s office. They all knew he was lying. Professional courtesy would have stopped Lena from bringing it up but the first thing Art did when they entered the interrogation room was ask “Miss McCall, would you like us to call a doctor for you?”  
Ellen McCall gave an open-mouthed stare, and Art pressed on: “I can see you have several bruises on your face that you didn’t have when we came to see you earlier. Can you tell us what happened?”  
“Fuck you think?”, McCall spat, her voice thick because of her stuffed nose. “That son of a bitch punched me. Elbowed me in the fucking face.”  
“Who did?”, Art asked. McCall huffed, and Art continued: “It’s illegal to use force against a suspect once in custody. Did you resist being arrested?”  
“No”, McCall said indignantly. “Fucking Meyers, I walk into the station in cuffs and the first thing he does is stick out his fucking elbow. Oops, he said. Fucking bastard.” Lena half expected her to spit on the floor. “But he’ll fucking deny it, and you assholes will back him up. That’s what you always do.”  
“Mrs McCall, I work with the FBI”, Art said. “I can assure you we do not condone police brutality. If you would like to file a complaint I would be more than happy to assist you. I’d also like to point out that you have the right to receive medical attention.”  
It was a risky gamble, but it paid off. McCall seemed to slump. Filing a complaint might seem like an appealing thought, but she probably couldn’t afford to move and she sure as shit wouldn’t be able to stay in Betonville. Not unless she minded her trailer being burnt down in the middle of the night. She grumbled something. Art said: “Alright. If you change your mind, please let us know. Have you been read your rights?”  
“Yes”, McCall grumbled.   
“Good”, Art said cheerfully. “Miss McCall, why did you run when you saw us?”  
McCall shrugged. She crossed her arms and seemed to want to disappear into the uncomfortable chair she was sitting in.   
“Do you know why we wanted to talk to you?”, Art said. McCall shrugged and began to pick at her fingernails. To Lena’s surprise, she said: “look, it’s Mitchell you want, alright? And he ain’t around as you know. Bastard was supposed to pay me for - “ She stopped talking and said: “don’t I need a lawyer?”  
“Well”, Art said, “you could ask for one, but then we’d all be stuck here for hours until they got here, and you’d be out of a couple a hundred bucks.”  
McCall squinted. “If I can’t afford one, the state has to pay, right?”  
“Sure”, Art lied again. “For the court date. Not for right now.”  
“I know my rights”, McCall said, though evidently, she didn’t. Art sighed. “I understand. But that would take hours, and it’s not you we’re interested in.”  
“You want Mitchell.” McCall huffed. “Bitch, he’s been dead for months.”  
“We’re aware of that”, Art said calmly. “But you knew him best. He might have told you things he hasn’t told anyone else.”  
The thought seemed to flatter McCall. She said: “we didn’t date or anything. He just asked me to keep stuff for him sometimes.”  
“What kind of stuff?”  
McCall shrugged. “I don’t know, I never looked in those boxes. He told me not to in case y’all would come knocking.”  
“And you never got curious?”  
“No”, McCall said, seemingly with pride. “I know how to keep my nose outta other people’s business.”  
“How do you know Mitchell Buchanan?”, Art asked. McCall huffed. “Christ, you guys don’t know anything, do you?” Lena suppressed a smile. “I used to date this waste of space named Vince. Mitch was his half brother. Mitch was okay though. Never put a hand on me. Paid me to keep my mouth shut. And I can do that.”  
“The reason we’re asking”, Art said, “is because of a missing persons case in the area.”  
“I didn’t see them”, McCall said hastily, and Lena’s breath caught when she noticed the pluralisation.  
“Them?”, Art said. “I didn’t mention anything about - “  
“I mean him”, McCall said, and her face turned bright red. “Him. There’s this guy who’s missing, right? I assumed you meant - “  
“Ellen, are you lying to me?”, Art asked calmly. “Because if you are - “  
“I didn’t do - “  
“It’s a crime to lie to a federal agent”, Art said. “Punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of - “  
“It wasn’t my fault!” McCall snapped. “Stupid kid could’ve kept her fat yap shut and they’d all be home by now.” She began to cry. “I didn’t do nothing, I told Mitch to leave it, but - “  
“Alright”, Art interruped. “Start from the beginning.”

It was only half past five by the time she returned to the station, but she was feeling great. Invigourated, thrilled. Hungry.   
“That all went surprisingly fast”, Art said, sitting down with a groan. “God, I swear, these two each grabbed one kidney and they’re using it as a trampoline.” Her eyes darted past Lena as she contentedly leaned back in her chair. “You wanna call him or shall I?”  
Lena dialled Thomas Winter’s number; he picked up at the third ring.   
“We think we know what happened”, she told him. He didn’t reply but from his sharp intake of breath, she gathered that he was more nervous than he’d ever let on Or maybe he was just surprised.  
“The family were on their way to Florida from the airport”, Lena explained. “They stopped for gas and presumably lunch at a gas station a few hours from the airport. That was the last time they were seen alive.”  
“You knew that already”, Thomas Winter said irritably. “They got gas. Get to the point.”  
“Yes”, Lena said, straining to sound patient. “We assumed they’d just gotten gas. The amount charged to the credit card was about enough for a full tank, at least for the car they’d booked. But they’d gotten a different car because of a mistake at the company. This one had a smaller gas tank and no USB ports, which is why their phones probably weren’t charged and were switched off at different times. Anyway, the credit card amount doesn’t line up. It’s too big, so they bought something else. Considering it was about eleven and they’d gotten off their flight early, it’s likely that they got lunch.”  
“You didn’t get surveillance tape?”  
“Gas station doesn’t keep it for more than a week. By the time we knew who they were they’d erased it. Credit card company just has the amount and location, not the details of what they bought.”  
Thomas Winter mumbled something which she didn’t quite catch, so she pressed on. “Just off the interstate there’s a small grassy patch with a couple of trees and a few picnic tables. They stopped there for lunch. While they were there, they encountered Mitchell Buchanan, one of the men we apprehended at the hospital. Your niece recognised him.”  
“From what?”, Thomas Winter asked.   
“From the Grant County news website. We know she’d been reading the archives because - “  
“Because she knew who you were”, Thomas Winter said. “And she saw Mr Buchanan - “  
“She recognised his brother, actually, but they look very much alike and it was enough. According to a witness, he became angry and decided he did not want to take the risk of being identified.”  
“Why was he there?”  
“Transferring illegal goods into another van. The area isn’t widely used, it’s kind of a mess. The other guys had just left and they were packing up.”  
Thomas Winter was silent for a bit and Lena waited for him to ask the next question, knowing he’d be torn between wanting to know and remaining in relative ignorance. Eventually, he asked: “So what exactly happened then?”  
“Are you sure you want to know?”  
“Yes”, he said, and though she understood she wished he’d change his mind. The perpetrator was dead, there wouldn’t be a trial. It’d be so easy to turn around and walk away.   
“From what we gather”, she continued, “Mr Adams tried to intervene. Buchanan beat him on the head with a shovel. It didn’t lead to his death, but it did a lot of damage. Buchanan loaded him into the van along with the rest of the family. He died a few hours later. They kept the family somewhere; our witness says she isn’t aware of the exact location, but she says she knows he kept them somewhere in an abandoned farmhouse.”  
“For his own pleasure”, Thomas Winter said glumly, and he swore. Lena couldn’t blame him. Thinking about it made her stomach clench.   
“Presumably. The autopsy was inconclusive. We can’t establish a cause of death either. They might have been dead days or weeks even before we found your niece. The witness wasn’t specific.” She doubted it. There had been dirt on Peter Adams’s body, but not on the others, meaning they’d buried him then dug him up and moved him. The women, the girls - they would have been alive. There had been no dirt on them.   
“I’ll need a copy of the autopsy report”, Thomas Winter said stiffly.  
“I’ll make sure you get it”, Lena promised, understanding it was his way of coping. “How’s your niece doing?”  
He hung up.   
“That went well”, Art commented, and for once Lena wasn’t sure if she was being sarcastic. She sighed.  
“I can’t stop thinking about those girls”, Art said. “Are you going to send him the autopsy file or is it going to get lost in the mail?”  
Lena shrugged. “Hey, if he wants it…” She was under no obligation to give it to him, but if he persisted he’d get it eventually, with or without a court order. And at least he’d know how to read it, how to interpret it. Not that there had been much to interpret. Most of the soft tissue had been gone and bones alone told them very little. Lena hoped the lack of findings would shield him from the worst, but she doubted it. Reality couldn’t be worse than what his mind would make up.   
They walked outside together, and Lena wondered why she didn’t feel the sense of vindication she normally felt after solving a crime. Art and the FBI would probably take the credit entirely, but that wasn’t what was bothering her. There was nobody to lock up, no big reveal, just a cosmic joke, an anomaly, tiny coincidences piling up into a big disaster that had cost three innocent lives and ruined the fourth. It was downright anticlimactic, and Lena’s hands itched to dive back in, to find someone whom she could punish.   
“What time is it?”, Art said, but she checked her watch before Lena could answer. “Only six. Feels a lot later.” She sighed. “I should probably start drafting a press release.”  
“You don’t think the Betonville Sheriff has leaked the story yet?”  
“Probably, but he doesn’t know all the details, so it’ll make him look stupid and I am here for that.” She did a fist-pump, then rubbed her stomach. “I saw a pizza place on the way in. Come on, I’m treating.”  
“They only do take-out”, Lena pointed out. Art sighed. “Ugh, if only one of us had a house in the area... “ She stopped in her tracks. “No. Wait. It’s coming to me now…”  
“Alright”, Lena said, amused in spite of herself. “I thought you only ate Indonesian food.”  
“That was the first trimester. I’m all for pizza now. I have twins to feed.”   
As they walked to the pizzeria Art launched into a long story about a pizza she’d once had in Naples, and suddenly Lena wondered how she did it. Nine kids, a marriage and a demanding job. She obviously had money, she was well-connected, but she’d known Art for a while now and she could tell when she was struggling. Was it bad to find some solace in that?   
“Is this place any good?”, Art wanted to know as she studied the menu. Lena didn’t bother; she’d read it so many times she could practically recite it backwards. She shrugged. “It’s got dough, tomato sauce and cheese. Not sure what else you’d want.”  
“Christ”, Art said. “One of these days I’m going to take you to an actual Italian restaurant.” She frowned. “One where they don’t stuff the crust with hot-dogs. Although I kind of want to try that now.” She giggled. “God bless America.”  
“I’ll visit you in hospital after your triple bypass”, Lena told her.   
“So kind of you. I’ll combine it with a c-section, save on my hospital bills.” She put the order in with the kid behind the counter. “And please”, she told him, “if something tells you today’s not the day to skimp on the cheese then listen to that voice in your head.”  
The kid decided to ignore her.   
As they walked back to their car, Art said: “I guess you’re picking up Hannah first.”  
“Yeah.”  
“Good. I can’t wait to see her again. I feel like her fairy godmother.” She hopped into her car with surprising grace. “See you in a bit, yeah?”  
“Yeah”, Lena replied, then watched as Art’s taillights disappeared into the dusk.


	20. Chapter 20

Thomas Winter was a sneaky son of a bitch.   
He’d e-mailed her and when she hadn’t responded, he’s called her, several times, asking her if she’d had a chance to think about his offer yet. His voice wasn’t exactly polite when he did so; this was a man used to getting his way, but he had no leverage over her and she told him “no” firmly and with a twinge of pleasure. He was, however, nothing if not tenacious. He’d e-mailed Art, who’d told him (with Lena in BCC) that it was Lena’s call and to stop e-mailing her. Then he’d e-mailed Jeffrey, which put her in a much more difficult spot because Jeffrey was susceptible to the word ‘help’. It pissed her off; it was none of his business. The knowledge that he was going to go home to Sara Linton and describe their meeting about the issue as ‘trying to talk some sense into her’ infuriated her even more. She had a sneaking suspicion that those two spent more time talking about her behind her back than she cared for.  
“It’s a generous offer”, Jeffrey had stressed, and though she didn’t disagree she had told him she couldn’t very well drop Hannah in someone else’s lap for a week, both because it was true and because it was easier than admitting that even after all this time, she still couldn’t talk about what had happened to her, something nobody seemed to understand. All Jeffrey saw was a girl who needed help. Nan saw an exciting trip to a foreign country, and all Art had to say was “if you don’t want to go, then don’t go.”   
It wasn’t until two days after talking to Jeffrey that the reason she should go popped into her head, and then she knew she’d have to go even if she still resisted the idea. And if she wasn’t going to make it easier on herself, then she certainly wasn’t going to do Thomas Winter any favours.   
The only problem was that whatever she could have demanded he would have coughed it up, because he was desperate and he had money. He could have chartered a private plane for her or the presidential suite in a five star hotel, but he couldn’t get his sister back and he couldn’t fix his niece.   
“I can’t fix her either”, she told him on the phone, and he’d replied: “I’m not expecting you to. All I want for you is to talk to her.” The relief in his voice was palpable and almost made her physically cringe. So she caved, in the end, not because of Thomas Winter or Jeffrey or the prospect of travelling to a foreign country for the first time in her life, but to assuage her own sense of guilt. It was probably the wrong reason but she had to start somewhere, and so she got a passport and a suitcase, dropped Hannah off with Nan and drove herself to Atlanta.  
The fall was just starting and it had settled on Georgia with a vengeance; the short sprint between the valet and the front door almost left her soaking. She watched the sun set from the check-in queue; when she got to the desk, she half expected the ground crew to turn her away. Sorry, it was probably a joke. Next.   
They didn’t though; the steward handed her her boarding pass, attached a tag to her suitcase that read LHR and sent it on its way down the conveyor belt so that Lena was left clutching her carryon luggage. She’d brought a canvas satchel. A backpack, all things considered, had seemed inappropriate.   
She wandered aimlessly around the airport’s shopping centre for a while. She wasn’t used to having time to herself; either she was at work or she was with Hannah. There wasn’t much in between. She felt like she was missing something now that she didn’t have a stroller to push around. She checked her watch. Only six pm. Her flight didn’t leave until well past eight. She wondered why the check-in time was so long.   
She sat down on a bench, pulled her phone from her pocket and scrolled through the menu until she found Nan’s number.  
Hannah ok?  
Why wouldn’t Hannah be okay?  
She got up, went to a bookstore, let her fingers brush the spines aimlessly. She’d never been good at shopping, not without a purpose at least. Yet the flight she was about to go on would take over eight hours. Eight hours was a long time, and though she had hoped she might catch some sleep she was feeling so jittery that it seemed unlikely. She might as well treat herself to a book. She hadn’t read much since Hannah had been born. Her brain didn’t seem to be able to focus long enough.   
When she was in line for the cash register her phone vibrated in her pocket, and she took it out.   
Having dinner. Sort of, Nan had texted, along with a picture of Hannah, covered in green goo and grinning at the camera. Lena smiled. Hannah was at her happiest when she was dirty.   
They grow up so fast. She’d heard that line countless times before, in movies and TV shows, from parents whose children had died or done something unspeakable. At first it had seemed like a ham-fisted trope to Lena, like the adagem that children brought happiness. They didn’t always, she knew that, and especially those first few weeks, when Hannah had been waking up every half hour, or months later, when she’d started teething and she hadn’t slept for more than ten minutes at a time for four days, all Lena had been able to do was go through the motions. But they’d gotten through it, and now that Hannah went down for the night at seven pm and woke up at seven am with nary a sound it was manageable. Hannah was an easy child, easily entertained, cheerful, sociable. Everything Lena wasn’t. It worried her sometimes until she remembered that Ethan had been none of those things either. Hannah’s personality, much like her entire existence, was a happy little accident.   
She picked a random paperback from the shelves, bought herself a sandwich and a bottle of water, then sat down in an uncomfortable plastic chair to wait until it was time to board. 

He’d told her he’d arrange for transportation from the airport to the hotel and she’d expected a cab driver with a sign, but he was there in person. She picked him out of the crowd immediately, tired though she was. He stood out from the rest, tall and with a look of arrogance and ennui on his face like he was wondering how these people dared to be in his personal space.   
“Don’t you have to be at work?”, she asked him.  
“And a good morning to you too.” He picked up her suitcase without asking; she pulled the handle from his fingers.   
“I skipped rounds”, he said. “Thought I might fill you in before you got to the hotel.”  
“I’ve been awake for about thirty-six hours”, Lena said. “I don’t think my brain’s going to absorb any information right now.”  
“Don’t be silly”, he said. “Let me get that for you.”  
“I can carry my own luggage, thanks”, she said curtly.   
They were off to a great start.   
She followed him wordlessly to his car - a black BMW SUV, pretty much par for the course - and finally let him put her luggage in the trunk as she climbed into the passenger’s seat, or tried to, at least - it was on the opposite side of the car.   
“Sorry”, he said. “I’m driving.”  
England looked drearily unappetising, at least from the motorway. She saw loads of industry, the warehouses and factory halls slowly shrinking, growing closer, then increasingly replaced with houses, smaller firms, churches with cheap, dirty banners advertising the virtues of Jesus. So far it all looked remarkably like home.   
“How was your flight?”, Thomas asked her. She shrugged.   
“Fine, I guess.” The flight had been relatively quiet with only two thirds of the seats occupied; Lena had had the entire row she’d been on to herself. The lights had dimmed after eleven and she’d tried to sleep, but after a few hours she’d given up, watched a movie on the screen of the chair in front of her, started on her book. It had been strange, having all that time to herself. The fact that she couldn’t go outside, go for a run or do something else she didn’t have the time for anymore, had seemed like a loss from the outset, but she hadn’t minded. There was something comforting in not being able to put the time to good use.   
The landscape began to change; buildings looked older, in better condition, though not much. She saw lots of shops advertising fast food, mobile phones, groceries. A hairdresser, a physiotherapist. It looked dingy, all of it.   
He must have seen the look on her face, because he told her: “most of London is like this. I put you in a hotel in the City, though. It’s nicer there.”  
“I thought we were in the city”, she said.   
“We are, but your hotel is in the financial district. It’s called the City with a capital C.”  
“That’s not at all confusing”, Lena told him. He shrugged. “That’s the British for you. There are neither elephants nor castles at Elephant and Castle, just a bloody hideous shopping centre.”  
“I’ll bear that in mind”, she said. “Where do you live?”  
“Runnymede. It’s outside of London. I didn’t think you’d enjoy staying there very much. Not much fun being in a rural area without a car.”  
He had a point. Still, Lena wasn’t a big city person and London, so far, wasn’t doing a lot to change her mind. That was, until Thomas took a right turn and she suddenly found herself going across a familiar landmark.   
“Is that - “  
“Tower Bridge”, he said, like it was nothing. To him it probably was, but Lena, despite her exhaustion, felt a surge of excitement.   
“It’s big”, she said. “I didn’t think it would be this big.”  
He shrugged, then took a sudden right turn once they’d gotten off the bridge and slipped his car into an underground parking garage.   
“Your hotel”, he said.   
She still insisted on carrying her own luggage. The hotel was large and nondescript, with marble floors and a spacious lobby with thick carpets and the sort of chairs that were meant to be comfortable for ten minutes and not a second more. A group of people drew her attention; they were standing beside the escalators, dressed in richly decorated sarees in dazzling colours, like a flock of exotic birds. She couldn’t keep her eyes off them.   
“Your room’s ready”, Thomas Winter said, and with some annoyance she saw, too late, that he’d grabbed her suitcase and was now dragging it towards the elevators. She hurried after him.  
“I can find my own room”, she told him when they got on the elevator.   
“I don’t doubt it”, he said. “That’s very important to you, isn’t it? Doing things yourself?”  
“Sure is, doctor Freud.” The lift doors opened and she exited before he did, realising too late she had no idea which room she was in.  
“This way”, he said behind her, and again she was left trailing in his wake.  
He used the stupid key card that never worked to open her door, and got it on the first try because of course he did.   
“After you”, he told her.  
“You’re going to invite yourself into my hotel room?”, she said. He didn’t bother responding but got in, put her suitcase in the bathroom and sat down on one of the chairs by the window.   
“I figured we could talk”, he said.  
“You could’ve said something in the car.”  
“You seemed distracted.”   
“I’m really tired.”  
“You shouldn’t go to bed just yet”, he said. “The jetlag will kill you.”  
“I smell like airplane.”  
“So have a shower first. I’ll wait.” He picked up the complementary newspaper and opened it like he had all the time in the world. For a fleeting moment she contemplated whether to throw him out or not, but in the end she just took her suitcase into the bathroom and locked the door.   
It helped, though, having a hot shower in blissful silence with no-one to bother her, and she felt a bit better by the time she re-emerged in a clean pair of jeans, a coral coloured button-down and brown biker boots.   
“That colour looks good on you”, he remarked as she came out. She ignored it, sat down on the bed and asked: “so when did you want me to talk to her?”  
“Not today”, he said, getting up and sitting down next to her on the bed. She suppressed a smirk. Men. They were so transparent. He said: “I assumed you’d be too tired and besides, she’s been feeling a bit under the weather. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after that.”  
“I’m flying home on Monday”, she pointed out. He shrugged. She could feel the heat of his body.   
“You’ll meet her before then, I’m sure. I’ll see when she’s up for it, I’ll text you and I’ll pick you up.”  
She had to ask: “aren’t you married?”  
“Sure”, he said, allowing his hand to rest on the bed against her thigh. It might have been accidental, but she knew it wasn’t. “But that’s not the question you should be asking.”  
“Then what should I ask?”, she said, playing along.   
“Whether you should care”, he said. “It’s not your marriage, it’s mine.”  
“I’m not in the habit of fucking married men.”  
“Neither am I”, he said dryly, and she rolled her eyes. He told her: “My wife - “  
“ - Doesn’t understand you?”  
“Oh, she understands me just fine”, he told her. “She cares very little. Meanwhile, I find myself caring increasingly less. So why should you?”  
Fair enough, she thought, and she let him pull her down on the bed. 

He was a surprisingly considerate lover. It didn’t take her very long to come to that conclusion; he was great at it, in fact. Ethan, even at times when he wasn’t actively trying to hurt her, was young and impatient and often assumed that whatever pleased him would also please her; and Greg, before him, had been a romantic at heart, not interested in fucking but in making love, which had been fine except sometimes, Lena didn’t want love, she wanted to fuck and be fucked.   
Yet Thomas didn’t scare her, dominant though he might be. He was in charge but in a way, he wasn’t, meticulously watching her closely to see which reactions whatever he was doing would have on her, whether to slow down or speed up or change tactics altogether. Her pleasure seemed to please him. As fetishes went, she supposed that was a good one to have.   
Afterwards, as they lay in bed, though, she could almost feel his restlessness, wondering if he could slip out just yet, hoping she’d fall asleep so he could get out. She wasn’t about to let him off the hook that easily.   
“Is this what they teach you in neurology school?”, she teased him, but he took it as a serious question.  
“Of course not. What did you think?”  
“I was kidding.” She sighed, eyed the ceiling. “Doctors are so fucking serious all the time.”  
“You know many doctors?”  
“Not that many. My kid’s pediatrician.”  
“The tall redhead?” He snorted. She asked: “You know her?”  
“She came to see Lena at the hospital”, he told her. “Not sure why, she’s never been her patient and she had plenty of doctors.”  
“She feels very responsible”, Lena said, though she meant ‘meddlesome’.  
“I didn’t care for her very much”, Thomas said, rolling over and sitting up. This time, Lena didn’t try to suppress her grin.   
“Thank God. I thought I was the only one.”  
“Too much of a sainthood complex”, he said, and she had to resist the temptation to dive into a satisfying round of Sara Linton-bashing. Thomas began to gather his clothes from the floor of the hotel room.   
“I have to be back at work”, he said, and though she didn’t believe a word of it she told him: “sure.”  
“I told the front desk to charge your orders to my card. Please make yourself comfortable.”  
“That’s a risky thing to say.”  
“I’m sure they’ll call me once they run out of Crystal and caviar,” he said as he pulled up his pants.  
She leaned back against the pillows, crossed her arms and watched him dress himself, which made him visibly uncomfortable. She didn’t care. As he was putting on his coat he asked: “aren’t you going to get dressed?”  
“Nah”, she said, slipping out of bed and standing in front of the window. “I’m just going to enjoy the view.” And she did, feeling her skin tingle from cold and endorphins running through her system. The room he’d booked her looked out on Tower Bridge. He must have paid extra for that, and she wondered why he’d done it, why he hadn’t booked her a cheaper hotel far away from the tourist attractions. And then she wondered if she’d ever have the chance to bring Hannah here, when she was older. Old enough to appreciate it.   
Behind her the door slammed shut, but Lena stayed in front of the window for a long time. 

Lena had never been good at tourism. She preferred the kind of vacation where she could spend her days on the beach, get a tan, go for a swim, maybe talk her way into a volleyball match, then have dinner at a cheap restaurant with good food and paper napkins and sleep for a long time. Her last vacation had been so long ago she barely remembered it. Big cities had never appealed to her and as she stood in the crowds at Tower Bridge station, clutching the Oyster Card the guidebook had told her to buy and breathing in the stale, bitter air of the tube station, she wondered why anyone would subject themselves to this. But she was only going to be here once, probably, and she’d be a fool to stay in her hotel room all day, so she took the underground - not subway, her guidebook pointed out with some disdain; that was for Americans - to Piccadilly Circus, in the sort of roundabout way she suspected only a tourist would take. She spent so much time cruising through endless underground corridors, being brushed aside by hasty locals and dodging excited Japanese tourists, that she wondered if she should have just walked. Eventually she got out of the crammed train and followed the masses up to the square where the chill and the rain greeted her, casting the crowded intersection in a grey haze that only the brightly lit ad boards above the GAP store could pierce. Around her people hurried towards shops; a few were braving the weather to attend a miserable looking street performer.   
She spent some time in a gift shop, browsing mugs and snow globes, wondering what to bring Nan as a thank-you gift. As if on cue she felt her phone vibrate, and when she unlocked the screen she saw Nan had sent another clip of Hannah, in her pajamas, banging toy cars on the floor with the sort of existential rage only small children and drunks had. Lena felt her mouth roll into a smile before it even hit home, and she had to stop herself from brushing the screen with her fingertips. She missed Hannah.   
But it was nice, too, to have some time to herself, and later, as she sat in a pub drinking strangely flat beer and browsing her guidebook, she wondered if this made her a bad mother. Weren’t mothers supposed to be devoted to their children, want to be with them round the clock? She missed Hannah. Of course she did. But now that she had her freedom back, if only for a few days, she realised how much she had missed that, too. Hannah had kept her occupied, had given her something to do, a reason to get up in the morning, not in the way a soggy inspirational poster would have it but a literal one: you couldn’t stay in bed to feel sorry for yourself if there was a tiny human who would either starve or rip your eardrums to shreds unless you fed them. And though Lena had never really clicked with young children it was different when they were your own. When she went to pick up Hannah from daycare Hannah would stretch out her arms to Lena, or do that weird belly-flop thing in her direction, giving her a giant, sticky smile that quietly made her feel better.   
But Hannah was always around, except for when Lena was at work. Now that she was neither at work nor at home she realised how long it had been since she’d been on her own. 

She made it until about six PM before she gave up and went back to the hotel. She spent some time walking through Hyde Park and its overpriced coffee vans, walked up and down Regent Street and got a teddy bear in a Beefeater costume for Hannah. By the time darkness set in her head was swimming and her legs felt like jelly. She took the underground back to the hotel, made her way to the room and ordered room service. The menu didn’t offer caviar or she would’ve tried it.   
She was halfway through her burger when Art called.   
“Sup?”, she said. “How’s London?”  
“Cold and rainy”, Lena said. “Though my hotel room has a nice view.”  
“Which hotel are you at?”  
“The one that’s right next to Tower Bridge. It’s pretty nice.” She muted the tv. Art asked: “So did you get to meet the kid yet?”  
“Nah.” She was reluctant to talk about it, mostly because she still wondered what she was doing here. She wasn’t a psychologist. She felt like a fraud if she stopped to think about it.  
“Well”, Art said, “as long as he doesn’t expect you to fix her…”  
“He says he doesn’t.”  
“What people say and what people think aren’t always the same thing”, Art said, “though I don’t think I need to point that out to you.”  
“How’re the kids?”, Lena asked, hoping to change the subject. Art groaned. “How much time have you got? There’s a freaking measles outbreak at Juno’s school, can you believe that? I’m terrified she’s going to bring it home. I have three kids who are too young for the MMR.” She sighed. “Ivor got into a fight yesterday because… well, because he’s attention-starved or whatever. Fuck if I know. Finn’s got a stomach bug so tomorrow they’ll all have a stomach bug, and Jesper broke his arm last week ‘cause he thought he’d be able to fly down the stairs if he put on his superman cape and for the life of me I can’t figure out whether Thomasin pushed him or not.” She paused. “Then again, Magali slept through the night for the first time, so there’s that little sliver of happiness I guess.”  
“It’s better than nothing”, Lena said. Her heart gave a funny little flutter when she thought about Hannah. Art growled and changed the subject.   
“Have you done the tourist circuit yet?”  
“Little bit. Walked around Piccadilly Circus and Regent Street for a while. I don’t think I’m cut out for big city life, but it was fine.”  
“Hey, I like big city life, but London would drive me up the fucking wall”, Art said. “I’ve been there once. I liked it but I was so relieved when I got back home. It’s just… So intensely crowded.”  
Lena looked out her window again, at Tower Bridge. It had been lit up in white, blue and purple and it glowed like a torch in the dark, but despite the garish colours it was beautiful and imposing. She remembered the trip on the underground that she’d taken; stuck in the crowd, she’d stood by the doors, holding on to a pole for support. She hadn’t been wearing gloves and she’d realised too late that the scars on her hands were in full display that way. With the way the train jostled and jolted letting go hadn’t been an option, but nobody had stared, nobody had cared. If they’d even noticed their eyes had glossed over it passively, the scars barely registering or not at all. It had come to Lena like a shock, almost, that people didn’t care. Here, she wasn’t the rape victim or that spic cop, she’d been an anonymous entity, her own little planet whose orbit you didn’t enter. It had been surprisingly soothing.   
“True”, she said. “But I like it here.”

Thomas Winter texted her the next morning that today was not a good day, not bothering to explain further, and Lena tried to shrug it off. She wondered whether he’d even told Other Lena he was bringing her over; if the girl was anything like her, she wouldn’t want to talk at all.   
It wasn’t her choice to make, though, so she took the tube again, spent an hour wandering through the British museum, ate lunch in a Korean café in Bloomsbury, went to see Big Ben and Buckingham Palace. There was a confused buzzing in her head and it took her a while to realise that this was jetlag. It made the entire experience feel surreal, like perhaps she’d been sedated, and the tension that came from having to make her way around a foreign city made it all the more exhausting. Still, when she got to the hotel late in the afternoon she felt a weird sort of vindication, and if not exactly a connection to the city then at least a deeper understanding of what brought people here. Bloomsbury had been pretty with its leafy squares, and she’d stood in one of them for a few minutes, idly wondering what it would be like to live there like surely every tourist did. She’d seen children, too, which had been a shock; she’d never realised they lived in the cramped, businesslike inner city as well, yet they had been there, an entire class of them all dressed up in tartan pinafores and straw hats like something out of a cartoon. She’d stared after them as their schoolmarm hurried them down the street to an unknown destination, wondering if their life would be better than Hannah’s, or worse.   
She took a long shower when she got back to the hotel, ordered room service again, then got into bed and called Thomas Winter.   
“I don’t want to rush you guys”, she told him, “but I’m going to be gone tomorrow night, so if you still want to talk…”  
He was quiet for a few seconds, then, finally, admitted: “I didn’t tell her you were coming.”  
Of course you didn’t, she thought, but she said nothing, let him talk himself deeper into the hole he’d dug.   
“I meant it when I said she wasn’t feeling well. I just… Haven’t had a chance to let her know yet.” He paused. “It’d be good for her to talk with you, though.”  
Still, she said nothing until he snapped: “What the hell do you want, then?”  
“For you to let me know when you want me to come over”, she said patiently, quietly relishing his stress. Served him right for dragging her all the way around the planet.  
He groaned, muttered something ineligible, then said: “fine. I’ll pick you up at eleven.”

It was a longer drive than she had anticipated; after they’d been in the car for close to an hour, she asked him: “so do you drive this way every day?”  
“Most days. I - we - have an apartment in London as well if I don’t feel like making the drive back.”  
A BMW, a country house, an apartment in the middle of the city. It made sense that he’d paid to have her over without telling the girl about it. He could afford to take that chance.   
“Must be nice”, she tried. He shrugged, clearly not in the mood for small talk.   
“It’s nothing fancy, just a one-bedroom place. We bought it before the property boom came into full effect. My accountant keeps telling me to sell it, but…” He gestured at nothing in particular. “After a twelve hour surgery I don’t want to get a hotel room or sleep in those ghastly staff rooms. I want my own place.”  
They were silent as he took the exit off the motorway, and she watched the countryside fly by. She saw sheep, rolling hills, not unlike home but somehow very different.   
“Here we are”, he said eventually, turning down a driveway that led up to a large, eclectic jumble of slabs of concrete and large panes of glass leaning against a massive boulder. She couldn’t stop herself from asking: “that’s a house?”  
“You’re not the first one to ask”, he said, getting out of the car. She followed suit. “My wife’s an architect. Apparently you cannot live in a regular shaped house if you’re an architect of some renown.” She followed him in through a massive metal door to end up in what she supposed was the hallway. Thomas said: “hand me your coat”, and pressed his hand to a corrugated iron panel on the wall which opened to reveal a coat rack; after he’d hung it he left the room without saying a word, so she followed him, uneased by the strangeness of the house. They passed through a large, open-plan living room with a massive u-shaped sofa in white leather that looked like it came from the set of a classy porn movie. The back wall was entirely made out of the large rock formation that the house was leaning against. A fireplace had been carved out of it. The wall across from it was all glass, looking out over the pastures and the sheep. She hadn’t liked the house from the outside. From the inside it was surprisingly beautiful.   
The kitchen was at the end of the house and had been done up in concrete and rosewood in a throwback to the seventies.  
“It’s, uh, big”, she said. He looked around as if he wasn’t sure where he was.  
“What, the house? It’s ghastly.” He pulled open a few cabinets. “Coffee? Tea?”  
“Coffee’s fine. You don’t like it here?”  
“It won a slew of awards”, he said. “So apparently I’m a barbarian for not liking it.”  
“You can’t argue taste.” She watched him fiddle uneasily with the coffee maker. He said: “Apparently you’ve never met any architects.”  
“So move.”  
He scoffed at that, but didn’t bother replying, and she didn’t care enough to pry.   
“So where’s the girl?”  
“You still call her that?”  
“Seems weird to call her Lena.” She took a sip. The coffee at breakfast had been watery, so much that she’d figured she ought to just get tea instead, but the coffee here, at least, was good and she found herself cradling the cup for warmth and comfort, acutely realising she wasn’t ready for the conversation she was meant to have with her namesake.   
“She’s upstairs, in her room”, Thomas suddenly said. He was standing at the window, looking out. “She barely leaves it, except when we make her. I make her come downstairs for dinner when I’m home, but…”  
He didn’t need to finish his sentence. She could see the struggle. Hank had made her eat for a while, too, at first, and it had not been a success. The food had tasted ashen, made her queasy, and at that point just holding forks and spoons had been a struggle. She’d spent so much time bickering with him that he’d given up, and Hank, like Thomas, was a tenacious bastard.  
He continued: “it’s like everyone’s fleeing the house. My wife’s working weeks seem to have increased to the point where she barely comes home to sleep and my daughter chooses to spend the weekends at school.”  
“You have a daughter?”  
He nodded. “Olivia. She’s about a year and a half younger. I’d hoped it would help, having her around, but they weren’t friendly before and… Well.” He shifted his feet. “I suppose I’m expecting too much of a fourteen year old. She’s at boarding school. She likes it there.”  
Another one of those quaint British traditions, though at least she understood the appeal there. If someone had given her the chance at that age to leave home she would have taken it too.   
“So it’s just the two of you?”, she asked. He shrugged. “I work long hours. I hired a… Well, not a nanny exactly, a psychology graduate to keep her company. She started school in September, but most of the time she refuses to go.”  
Lena had seized the chance to be back at work after it had happened to her. She’d been gripped by an overwhelming sense of panic as soon as she sat down and did nothing. Then again, she’d walked into the police station, not a high school. None of her colleagues had known quite how to treat her either, but they were cops and they were used to a certain amount of violence. If Lena’d had to walk into a building full of teenagers she might have chosen to stay in bed all day too.  
“Right”, she said. “So should I - “  
“Through that door”, he said, not looking at her. “Up the stairs, first door on your right.”

Her knocks went unanswered, so she took a deep breath and went in.   
The room itself was surprisingly neutral, done up in pine, cream, dove grey and olive green. A large bed on a rug with chevrons, a desk and a bookcase filled with books that looked unread. A sleek grey Macbook was charging on the desk. For a teenager’s room it was unnaturally quiet and sterile, like it hadn’t been lived in. The girl sat in a green armchair underneath a jumble of windows of different shapes and sizes, eclectically cut out of the thick concrete at different angles so that the light beamed into the room in all directions. The effect was clearly meant to be ethereal but the atmosphere was tense, mournful, funereal. The girl looked surprised to see her; Lena saw her brow knit in confusion. She sat down on the bed before the girl could throw her out.   
“Sorry to barge in”, she said, feeling the girl’s animosity radiating in her direction. Not for the first time Lena wondered why she’d come here. She’d had her reasons, but she knew better than anyone else that there was nothing she could do.   
“I don’t want to talk to you”, the girl said angrily, and Lena nodded.  
“I thought you might say that.”  
“Then why - “  
Lena laughed nervously. “You uncle asked me to - “  
“Of course he did”, the girl said bitterly. Lena noticed her accent had changed; it was now impeccably British, to her untrained ears anyway. “I’m fine. Go away.”  
“I was hoping you might say that”, Lena said, because it was the only way she could see out of the conversation that didn’t involve barging out of the room and telling Thomas to hire a fucking therapist instead. At the very least it shut the girl up momentarily.  
“I hate talking about what happened to me”, she said. “Can’t do it, even after all these years.”  
“Then why did you - “, the girl asked, though she clearly didn’t want to. Lena knew her anger and surprise would peter out fast and she’d go back to being quiet and unresponsive.   
“Your uncle asked me to”, Lena said quickly. “He thought it might help.”  
The girl scoffed, but didn’t reply. She turned her head to look out one of the windows, and Lena felt a tiny bit of reprieve at not having to look her in the eye, choosing to stare at her own shoes instead.   
“Actually”, she tried, “I came here because… I knew this kid once. He’d been… Well, it had happened to him too. He was about your age, a bit older maybe, and I was just… It had only been a few months. He wanted to talk to me, to compare… experiences.” She felt the corner of her mouth twitch and pressed on, hoping she wasn’t going to break down in front of the girl. She wasn’t sure she could bear it. The last time it had been easy; he’d been asleep.   
“I couldn’t”, she said. “I fucked up with him, I couldn’t help him. I should have been there for him and I…” She had to swallow something back, took a shaky breath, trying to steady herself. “It didn’t end well, and… Well, I thought, on the off chance that you do want to talk to me - “  
“What happened to him?”, the girl asked, without looking at Lena  
“He died”, she said. “Tried to commit suicide. He didn’t make it, not all the way. He put himself in a coma. He died a couple of months later. Never woke up.”  
“Are you worried I’m going to kill myself too?”, the girl said, her temper flaring again, and Lena asked: “should I be?”  
“Of course not”, the girl said, her voice dripping in venom. “Why would I do that?”  
“Anway”, Lena said, trying to press on. “I thought, on the off-chance that you do want to talk to me - “  
“I don’t.”  
“I know.”  
“Neither do you”, the girl said. “You just told me you didn’t want to be here.” Lena shrugged, feeling like she’d been caught with her pants down.  
“It’s just… It’s hard, with people who don’t get it.”  
“And you do?”, the girl snapped, finally looking back at her, and Lena raised her hands, showing the wounds in the palms of her hands.   
“More than most people, I’d say.” The girl looked away and said “whatever.”  
They were silent for a while. Lena tried not to watch the seconds tick by on her watch. She’d known the conversation would be like pulling teeth but now that she was in it, it was even worse.   
“That boy”, the girl suddenly said. “What was his name.”  
“Mark”, Lena said quietly. “Mark Patterson.”  
“Who hurt him?”  
“His mother. She abused him, rented him out to men.” Lena’d expected the girl to be surprised but she didn’t flinch.   
Silence descended on the room once again, and she was acutely aware of the blood rushing in her own ears.   
“I was going to have sex”, the girl said suddenly. “I had a job at home. I worked in a pizzeria. There was this boy. He liked me. I thought he was alright. I told him I didn’t want to be a virgin anymore. We were supposed to meet up after work, but the boss made him work late so I went home. I texted him, told him we’d meet up after I got back from America.” She paused. “They say the first time always sucks, but I don’t think they meant it like this.”  
Lena allowed herself a smile. The girl asked: “How old were you when you started doing it?”  
“Fifteen, I think”, Lena said hesitantly, taken aback by the girl’s directness.   
“Did you enjoy it?”  
“I think I liked the idea of it more than the actual experience.” God, she was bad at small talk, and a prude at heart.  
“Yeah, well”, the girl said. “At least you got to do it on your terms.”  
“Sort of”, Lena admitted. Looking back, her first boyfriend had been needy, emotionally stunted and manipulative; these days, she’d gleefully have dragged his ass to prison for sleeping with a teenager, but back then she hadn’t seen him for what he was.   
“Do you still have sex?”, the girl asked, eyes cast outside again.   
“Sure”, she said. The girl didn’t reply, but Lena understood what she wanted to ask.   
“It took me a while before I started to enjoy myself again”, she said, thinking of Thomas and trying not to, suddenly realising he’d been the first man she’d had in her bed after Ethan. Maybe that had been the first normal sex after her attack, even. “It’s harder to trust people.”  
As if on cue, the girl said: “watch out for Thomas then. He gets around more than a fairground ride.”   
“I’ll bear that in mind”, Lena said, trying to suppress a smile. It didn’t surprise her. It’d probably surprise Thomas to hear the girl knew about it.   
She said: “you know sex and rape aren’t the same thing, right?”  
The girl rolled her eyes. “I’m not an idiot.”   
“It’s just that you’re talking about it as if it’s the same thing. It isn’t.”  
“Whatever”, she said again. Lena tried not to groan. She wondered how old Hannah would be by the time she’d have to have the sex talk. She shifted on the bed, eager to get out of the room.   
“You don’t have to stay”, the girl said, and Lena asked: “do you want me to?”  
“No.” The answer came too soon, but Lena was glad to have an out. Still, she tried: “If you want to talk…”  
“Like I said, I don’t. And neither do you.” She finally turned away from the window and eyed Lena with quiet fury. “Fuck off back to the States. I don’t want you here.”  
“Fair enough”, Lena said, feeling deflated and trying not to show it. She pulled the card she’d prepared from her coat pocket and put it on the nightstand, like she’d done months ago at the hospital.  
“Here’s my number”, she said. “If you change your mind.”  
“I won’t”, the girl said. “Don’t need it. Take it with you. Fuck off.” She struggled to get out of the chair, but Lena didn’t wait for her to get to her feet, and left without saying another word. 

Thomas was quiet as he drove her back to the hotel. He’d asked her how it went and she’d told him the girl hadn’t wanted to talk. It seemed to disappoint him despite his reassurances that his expectations had been low to begin with. This time, when he followed her into the hotel, she didn’t try to stop him. She could use the distraction.   
He was less eager to get out of her bed afterwards, maybe because he now knew her not to be clingy or sentimental, or maybe because he wanted comfort and chose the worst possible person for it. He didn’t say much; they huddled together underneath the covers and watched the BBC news, which had items about by-elections in the home countries and something about the chancellor of the exchequer visiting Hartlepool, all of which made little sense to her. The news was quieter, too, more businesslike, and the talking heads seemed more natural, make-up less obvious, no spray tans. Less hysteria. She wondered idly why she hadn’t been born in this country; she’d probably like it a lot.   
Thomas played with her fingers absent-mindedly and she could tell he wasn’t watching the tv. His hands brushed over the scar in the palm of her hand. She surprised herself by letting him. She didn’t even mind.   
“Don’t these hurt?”, he asked. She shrugged, keeping her eyes on the TV. “A bit, when it’s cold out.”   
“They’re pretty large. You’re lucky - “  
“Not the word I would use.”  
“ - that they didn’t do much peripheral nerve damage.”  
“So I’ve been told.” She finally pulled her hand back. “Worst thing about it is people staring at them, really.”  
“You could probably get a plastic surgeon to - “  
She laughed humourlessly. “I can’t afford a plastic surgeon.” That, at least, shut him up, though she caught him staring at the scars again less than a minute later. She tucked them underneath the covers.   
It wasn’t until he was getting dressed that he asked her: “how long did it take you?”  
“Take what?” She’d stayed in bed and though the sheet was covering her lower half it didn’t cover her breasts, which seemed to make him uncomfortable now that he was putting his clothes back on. Much like his niece earlier that day he kept his eyes on the outside world as he talked.   
“To go back to normal.”  
She couldn’t help but laugh at that; she tried to stop it, but before she knew it she was doubled up in bed. After it had passed, she saw his face reflected in the window. He looked pissed.   
“You don’t go back to normal”, she said. “Ever.”  
She could feel him contemplate her answer for a moment. He said: “but you seem... I mean, you have a job and a kid and…” He trailed off, then said: “Never mind.”  
She stayed in bed after he’d left, idly wondering if it’d be okay to order room service for the third time in a row. Her phone beeped, and she picked it up, expecting another Hannah-related update from Nan, but it was a text message from an unknown number.  
Did psychiatrists ever tell you breathing exercises would help? Because they won’t shut up about it.   
It took her a few minutes before it hit home. The girl. She hadn’t wanted to talk, she’d said, but she’d meant talking face to face. It was easier to ask the burning questions when there was nobody to notice the tremor in your voice, the way it caught in your throat, became hoarse, the way your body seemed to want to cringe and retreat. It was easier to put on a casual façade of sarcasm that told everyone you didn’t care. Whatever, the girl had said. It had been unconvincing then but the tone of the text message was the same, laconic and careless to mask how the girl was feeling. Lena understood it all too well; she would have done the same thing if she could. Being in that room had been ghastly. This was easier on the both of them.  
She smiled and began to type her reply.

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s note
> 
> I’ve been a fan of Karin Slaughter’s books for a long time; practically since the beginning, in fact, when I received Kisscut as a Christmas present way back in 2002. I still read and love her books, but my favourite character is and will always be Lena. I like her not in spite of her flaws but because of them. I doubt I’d like her if I met her in real life but on paper, she’s a brilliant and engrossing character who keeps you guessing, and I miss her.   
> This novella (which ended up being much longer than I intended it to be) is meant to take place after the events of Faithless. I wrote it for two reasons, the first one being that I always wondered how Lena would fare during pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood. I get the choices ms. Slaughter made from a narrative point of view; they were absolutely necessary and this is in no way meant as criticism of either her handling of the narrative, or as some sort of pro-life manifesto. It is neither.   
> The second reason I chose to write it is that I’ve never liked the juxtaposition that exists between Sara and Lena; wherever Sara says A and Lena says B, it’s invariably A. I wanted Lena to have a moment of her own, strange as it sounds, to have her prove herself, surround her with other people less aware of her troubled history, which is why I didn’t include Jeffrey or Sara beyond a few brief appearances.   
> I basically wrote this for my own enjoyment, and I’m publishing it here in the hopes that someone else might get a bit of fun out of it as well. Let me know what you think!


End file.
